


shut up and drive

by Trojie, uglowian



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Car Racing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Implied Sexual Coercion, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Polyamory, Street Racing, other pairings will become apparent as events unfold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-23 13:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 139,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14935343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/uglowian/pseuds/uglowian
Summary: Pete Wentz is the grid girl, Andy Hurley loves him (not like that), and Jared Leto is the bad guy. A.K.A.: the bandom The Fast and the Furious AU that literally no one asked for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Also known as:
> 
>   * the AU in which Pete Wentz wants to be Rihanna, Joe Trohman is the only sane man in LA, and Jared Leto is still the bad guy
>   * the AU where Mikey Way is the north face of the Eiger, Patrick Stump has an anger problem, Andy Hurley has a Pete Wentz problem, and Ray Toro deserves a Nobel peace prize
>   * the AU where couchsurfing, veganism, and high-octane car chases collide 
> 

> 
> Or simply:
> 
>   * the AU where everyone's a streetracer, and Pete falls in love anyway
> 

> 
> Lovingly betaread by dapatty and heartofthesunrise. Much love from us <3

Pete fucking loves summer. He loves the heat and he loves the dust that rises in the air and catches the light, how it turns the late-afternoon sunshine to glitter just before sunset comes along. He loves how summer feels, but he also loves what summer brings. Less clothes. Later nights. Louder music. 

Cars.

He can hear the party getting started from blocks away - people driving in, using their cars to cordon off space, the sound of bass as speakers start to blast, and over the top, engines. Pete speeds up, tucks his phone in the pocket of his shorts, and, as soon as he gets within spitting distance of a spoiler, yanks his shirt off. 

'Pete--'

'What's up, Hurley?' Pete tosses the shirt at Andy, who catches it before it hits his face like a ninja catching an arrow. He dumps it in his open trunk, possibly into his toolkit, where Pete will either have to retrieve it from later or let it get slowly turned into a greasy rag. 

He considers the problem and then immediately mentally gives the shirt up as a lost cause and moves on with his life.

'You were supposed to be here half an hour ago.'

'Half an hour ago no one was here.'

'I was here,' Andy says, by which he means, _I was here and I could have used help setting up_. But Pete tries to avoid doing too much heavy lifting, and Andy's racks of tires and toolboxes definitely fall under that category. 

Pete pats him on the back. 'Much business yet?' 

Sometimes people do come to Andy for shit before the races start, even if he's mostly here to catch the people who spin out and need a patch-up job. It's good for business -- the ones who get him to fix them up on the night enough to get home usually end up limping into the garage the next day so he can finish what he started. Andy carries parts for pretty much everything, including most of the exotic things populating the LA scene.

He shrugs. 'Sold a couple of sets of tires, the usual.'

Pete's attention is already wandering. Cars are starting to pull up that look like contenders, not just people here to flash and crow and generally wave their tailfeathers and … other parts … around. Something purple slides on in and Pete grins, recognising Saporta's terrible taste in colour schemes. All around him, the noise is ramping up; thudding, fuzzed-out basslines and people whooping, rotary engines discharging, flat sixes purring and small-block Chevys roaring. Pete saunters across the asphalt, heading for the purple monstrosity, when something rumbles to a halt on the line right beside him. He steps out of the way of its bumper without even missing a beat, then does a double take, because this thing is fucking ancient, and looks it. It's not like, something cool and retro and lovingly restored -- it's just a beat-up old Trans Am with mud on the wheel arches. Forget gleaming chrome, Pete can see the beginnings of chassis rust.

Before the engine cuts, though, Pete actually listens -- and whatever they've got under the hood of that old junker, it purrs. He cuts it a second look, and then shakes his head when the first person out, unfolding himself from that low-slung backseat, is Ray Toro. Of course it's fucking purring if Toro's been working on it. Right on cue after him, Frank Iero appears, but … Pete squints, because he's not launching himself out of the driver's seat the way he usually does. He's moving slow, for Iero, and he's getting out of the passenger side. The dude who slides himself out of the driver's seat -- and slides is exactly the right word, he moves like he's overthinking it, somehow -- has a mop of dyed-red hair falling in his face. He flicks his head up to clear his bangs out of the way, and his eyes are huge. He looks over at Iero and then out at the crowd drawing close in anticipation of the start of a race. 

Pete knows this guy. 

Or, at least, knows _about_ him -- he's Gerard Way, Toro and Iero's latest ... find. Or something. Parts of the grapevine have some hunches about why they're keeping him around that are more to do with the way Iero apparently looks at him than anything to do with what he's like around a car, but Pete a) hasn't seen enough to make a call and b) tries not to judge. He's a grid girl -- grid guy, technically, but fuck it, if there's a dismissive term going around for the job Pete'll claim it and spit it back in their faces -- what leg does he have to stand on, exactly, for bitching about someone's job description being 'eye candy'? 

But -- not that Way isn't pretty, but those are car keys he's tossing in his hand, and he just rolled up for a couple of laps against one Gabe Saporta, so Pete mentally puts a black mark next to some of his gossip sources. This guy isn't here to be looked at, he's here to drive.

Pete's about to keep moving, because Gabe's already lounging next to his shiny purple penis-substitute. It's actually a damn Shelby Cobra, stripes and all, Pete realises now he's got a proper look at it, hood popped to show off the chrome, and Pete's _dying_ to give him shit about the entire thing, when a fourth person climbs out of the Trans Am. A kid, pretty much -- Pete can't tell from looking if he's even old enough to drink -- looks like he's made of popsicle sticks and tape, hair straightened to within an inch of its life, glasses high on the bridge of his nose. The weirdest thing is, Pete has no fucking idea who this little dude is.

'Dibs on the cute one.' 

Saporta moves like a fucking snake. 

Pete doesn't startle -- he _doesn't_ \-- but Gabe leans on his shoulder and smirks like he did. Pete would ask which one the cute one is but, knowing Gabe, the answer is probably 'both' and/or 'all'. So he goes for the next best thing: 

'Who's the tagalong?'

Gabe's eyes glitter like he's in on a secret that Pete doesn't know about, which, okay, first of all: fuck him. Second of all, it's not like Pete _cares_.

'Mr. Legs for Days?' Gabe grins in the skinny kid's direction.

Really. Pete's known Gabe for years, loves him to death, and wouldn't think twice about throwing down with anyone who talked shit about him -- but the guy could make a profession of coming off like a predator. Pete kind of adores him for it.

Without taking his eyes off Iero's crew, Gabe carries on: 'He's the kid brother.'

''The' kid brother?'

'Way's kid brother, if you want to get technical.'

'Is he even legal?' 

It's not like the cops are gonna be bothered about a bit of underage drinking if they do show up, but still. There's, like, a line somewhere between 'illegal street racing' and 'unattended minors getting into bad situations' that Pete doesn't wanna be party to crossing. Not everyone who comes to races is a good person. Not everyone who comes to races is someone you'd let look after your hypothetical children. Or kid brothers.

'What are you, his mom? And yes, he's legal. For everything. I checked,' Gabe says with a salacious twist to his voice. 'Why? Interested?'

Pete doesn't dignify that with a response. ' _You_ checked?' 

Because if Gabe Saporta knows enough to investigate the relative legality of a person Pete has heretofore never heard of or seen, Pete really needs to reevaluate his life. Gabe fucking _leers_. 

'Yeah, I checked. Try to keep up, Wentz.'

Pete doesn't want to give Gabe the satisfaction of an eye-roll but he really can't help himself.

Gabe pushes up off his shoulder. 'His name's Mikey, by the way. In case you were wondering.'

'Don't you have a race to win?'

Gabe, shameless as the sky is blue, gives him a little pat on his jean-cutoff-short-shorts wearing butt. 'As soon as you put that cute ass to work.'

'Hey. Hands off the goods.'

'You love it.'

And you know what? _So what_ if that's not entirely untrue. Like, if push came to shove, Pete wouldn't say he's an exhibitionist (not exactly), but getting ogled is a solid ninety percent of the fun of his job, and runs a close second only to showboating stunts in an actual car. But he knows his niche in the world, and racing isn't part of it. He glances one last time at Iero's crew -- and goddamnit does he hate when Gabe is right -- before stepping back and checking in by eye-contact with Vicky. She tilts her head, listening at her earpiece, and then nods at him, signalling 'good to go'.

Pete eyes the widening circle of people. The ones who were in up close are pulling back away from the cars, and people who were hanging out further back are coming forward to catch the start of the race. Eyes meet Pete's -- people he knows, people he knows of, people he sees around - and trail down over the rest of him, too. He preens. 

Because part of Pete is always counting that sort of look, you better believe he can spot other kinds of looks as well. One of them is a regular thorn in his side, lurking like a fucking creeper far from Gabe's side of the crowd, presumably because he knows he'd get short fucking shrift from anyone in that circle. That puts him close to Iero's lot, though, and the kid brother. Pete grinds his teeth. If it weren't for the fact that he promised Andy, _promised_ , a real promise, not to get into it with fucking Leto again … 

He twitches away, looking around the rest of the circle instead, eyes skipping over the familiar faces in the crowd -- Vicky and her little gang of unofficial marshals, Andy in the back with his arms folded, the empty space around him even in a crowd this tight that still gives Pete a little pang -- and Iero's boys, standing clustered around near the driver's side door of the crusty old Trans Am. Toro's leaning down to say something to Way's mop of cherry-red hair, Iero's looking … not worried, but his mouth is a tight line. He tips his chin up at Pete when they catch eyes, meets him bullshit for bullshit. The skinny kid, Mikey Way, though, he isn't looking at all, not til he feels Pete's gaze on him, and then when he finally actually does make eye contact, he doesn't look impressed. 

Pete, irked, pouts theatrically at Mikeyway (it's already running together in his head, a three syllable description more than a name, somehow), rounds his hands down over his own hips, and then spins on his heel and walks up to the line. 

He throws his arms up above his head and turns back around, already grinning. The noise around him drops levels like ripples in a pond fanning out as people realise things are getting started. When the music gets turned down, and all eyes are where they should be, on him, Pete takes a deep breath. 

'Alright, bitches,' he says, and damn, that never gets old, all that attention snapping to him. 'Are we here to fucking race, or what?'

The crowd roars. Pete gestures for them to quiet down. 

'In the … purple corner,' he says, grandstanding it like he always does, 'we have a regular. You all know Saporta, don't you?' he asks, and there are whoops and boos and metal fists and rude gestures, and Gabe eels himself out of the driver's seat to sit his ass on the edge of the doorsill and blow kisses at all the fucking opinions out there. 'Of course you do. How about over here in the red corner, you all know this motherfucker?' He nods at the Trans Am, at Gerard Way in the driver's seat looking determined with his hands at ten and two, and there's not exactly silence, this isn't a silent crowd, but you might as well hear crickets chirp compared to the welcome Gabe got.

'Well, you're in for a treat then,' he says, breaking the spell. 'Cos I hear this mystery kid can drive.' He hasn't heard anything of the sort, but fuck it, no one wants to hear him say 'I think this kid's a newbie who's gonna wreck his piece of shit car at the first corner.'

'Believe it when I see it,' Gabe hollers, and slides back into his stupid purple monstrosity. 

'Your ass better be able to cash those checks your mouth's writing,' Pete shoots back at him. 'Alright, are you ready?' He makes eye contact with Gabe, then with Gerard. The redhead (are you a redhead if you dye it that colour? It's so fake, Pete doesn't know if it counts) looks grim -- Saporta just looks amused. Pete suddenly wonders what they're racing for, if it's money or pink slips or … well, Gabe sometimes races for what he calls dinner and a movie. When the other driver's pretty enough to make it worth his while.

'Are you set?'

Pete's hamming it up but fuck it, isn't that his job?

All eyes on him, again, every single one, including Saporta and Way, and Way's kid brother, and Toro and Iero both with their faces serious and their arms folded, like mismatched but perfect bookends, from the side of the audience. Andy at the back, shaking his head. And fucking Leto, like usual. Pete doesn't break his smile. 

'Go,' he says, and drops his hands, and the two cars roar past him close enough that they stir warm gritty air against his bare thighs. Fuck yes. 

The crowd moves and splits -- chasing the cars off down the road and then settling back into the usual noise and wheeling and dealing to wait for them to come back. It won't be more than a few minutes, it's not a long circuit. 

Toro and Iero and the kid brother barely move. They wait by the line, all three of them shoulder to shoulder. Toro has his head cocked like he's listening for engine note over the roar of the crowd. Iero looks pissy and worried. The kid brother, Mikeyway, he just stands like a statue. Pete can't tell where he's looking, he just seems to be staring off into the middle distance. His jeans are belted stupidly low and his shirt doesn't come down far enough to hide his skinny hips. Pete jerks his gaze back up to non-pervy levels, not because he's like, anti-perving _per se_ but mostly because fuck it, he doesn't want Saporta to be right. 

Mikey looks up in time to catch Pete looking away, but by that point the sound of throbbing engines is audible even to normal people, and getting louder, and Pete turns around in time to see the Trans Am and the Cobra scream around the final corner neck and neck. 

He has no idea who's going to win, but he gets the fuck out of the way because they're coming in hot. 

The sound of upshift after upshift after upshift gets louder and louder and the crowd clears out of the way from the runoff behind the line. Thank fuck, too, because maybe the Cobra's got okay brakes but that Trans Am is from the dawn of time and Pete would bet anything it's got the stopping distance of like, a small moon.

And it should not, it absolutely should not, be able to beat Saporta's class A compensatory vehicle, but somehow Way hauls it into warp drive and gets his dinosaur's nose out in front of the Cobra, and yeah maybe he takes the entirety of the cleared out area to finally come to a halt after crossing the line but, can't deny -- the fucker won. 

There's a lot of cheering. People rushing around Pete, whooping and hollering, maybe with delight, maybe because they're as shocked as he is -- he can't really tell. He doesn't really care, for that matter, either. Saporta peels out of his car with a grin that suggests Way might be in for more than he bargained for. 

So naturally Gabe's the first one to clap Way on the back and steal Pete's job of yanking Way's hands up into the air in the 'we are the champions' pose. Way just blinks, then smiles, and Pete has to hand it to Gabe. It's a cute smile, a little soft and weirdly innocent, clearly not quite caught up with having just won, and Saporta just watches his mouth because he has some kind of life motto about seeing what you want and getting it. 

Pete jogs up to them to dole out the appropriate congratulations while Gabe snakes one arm around Way's waist. At the front of the throng, Toro and Iero still look grim somehow, like their boy didn't just pull off a minor miracle. Mikey just hovers behind them, skinny and pretty and not-quite-smiling. Pete looks away before Gabe can catch him and dances off to trash talk some other crews.

Nights like these, the race always bleeds into the party afterwards -- for a given and varying degree of 'party'. The constants: music, drinks, fucking barbecue because at least a half-dozen people show up with grills. It's like a tailgate in reverse, or just an extension of the tailgate before the race -- whatever. 

Pete finds a shirt first (whose? He doesn't know. It's a black cut off and it was hanging off the bed of someone else's pickup and he looks fucking great in it -- and that's all that matters) and then spots Saporta and Andy through the throng. Andy always brings his own grill to these things because no one else is vegan enough for him, so that's no surprise. But then Pete gets closer and spots Way's bright red hair. And the rest of Iero's crew, chatting.

Huh.

'Starting the fun without me?'

'We tried to wait,' Andy tells him, 'but you were preening.'

Iero snorts into his drink, which, okay, he can fuck right off. Pete winks at him because, baby girl, two can play at that game.

'So, is this your new boytoy, Iero? I heard he was cute, but _damn girl_ , you've been holding out.'

Gabe snorts this time, and Way actually blushes, faintly, because why wouldn't he, with those fucking Bambi eyes. Iero just casts Pete a flat look.

'Not mine.'

'Sure thing, shortstop -- he's his own independent man or whatever.' Pete winks at Way too, who just blinks back. 'But hell, Iero. You've got taste.'

Andy sighs. Gabe, who has, at this point, gotten his hands on one of Andy's vegan bratwurst atrocities (actually, they're really fucking good, but Pete won't ever stop giving Andy shit about them), makes an obscene gesture of his own, licking the drippings off the link. Has Pete ever mentioned that his friends are better than everyone else's?

'Is there a point to this conversation, Wentz?'

'Yeah, what gutter are you dragging to find the next hot young thing?'

'Why do you care? Get on Grindr like everyone else and get out of my face.'

Pete flicks his gaze to Mikey, just hovering by Toro, the both of them quiet and unreadable. And because Pete doesn't want an actual fight (and because Andy might kill him if he starts one), he pivots, turning back to Way and Gabe.

'So, kiddo,' -- it's a slightly ridiculous moniker; up close, Way looks like he's approximately the same age as Pete, just bigger-eyed and prettier -- 'you just won your first race. What's the prize?'

'Uh--' 

'I was racing for a date.' Gabe actually licks his fingers because he's a magnificent creep.

Way blushes _again_ and -- c'mon. Can everyone believe this guy? This is unreal. Everyone knows what Gabe means when he says he's racing for a date, and Way must've at least said yes if not shaken on it, which means he ought to be beyond the blushing stage of his life, surely. _Surely_. 

On a hunch, Pete looks around for the pseudo-parental units, and yup -- well, Iero's got his face buried in one of Andy's bean burger monstrosities (again, delicious, again, an opinion Pete will take to his grave rather than ever give voice to), but Toro's usually-friendly demeanour is a little chilly and he's definitely aiming it in Saporta's direction. 

'Well, you lost,' Pete points out, to break the quiet. 'So, what do you have to pony up for the man of the hour? Is the prize that he _doesn't_ have to go on a date with you?'

'Fuck you, I'm a great date, and a perfect gentleman.'

'Just make sure he wraps it up before he sticks it anywhere,' Pete advises Way. 

'Fuck off, Wentz, it's called flirting,' says Saporta, rolling his eyes. 

'You … do know how you flirt, right?' 

Somewhere to Pete's left, Andy claps Iero on the back because he just inhaled something down the wrong pipe. Whatever. Toro clearly doesn't think it's as funny. He's got the look of a dude ready to dump a body. 

And the kid brother is … texting. Pete grinds his teeth a little. 

'I learned all my best tricks from you, princess,' Gabe blows him a kiss. 'So shut your pretty mouth, and let me use 'em. Anyway, don't you have better places to be?' He cuts a sly glance sideways. 

Mikey is still texting. 

'Maybe I wanna trade racing tips with our reigning champion,' Pete says, leaning into Way's space. But as he tilts his head to bat his eyelashes in the direction of the blush, he catches movement out in the crowd beyond the little circle around Andy's grill. 

It's fucking Leto again. Still lurking, still like a creeper, and yes, Pete's like a stuck record and he knows it, but you know what? It's kind of hard to get over threats to your life, even if said threats are, at this point, categorically in the 'once upon a time' section of his personal history.

'Thought you gave up on the whole racing thing?' says Frank, still a little hoarse. 

Normally when people ask that, Pete tells them in sweet poisonous detail exactly where they can shove it, but he's kind of distracted with … what the fuck is that asswipe doing over here? Doesn't he have his own little posse of gross minor criminals to lurk with? 

'Only so you'd have a sniff of winning anything ever again,' Pete tells Frank, distracted. 'Speaking of, why aren't you racing right now, anyway? Where's that shit-tractor you call a car?'

Frank makes a face and shifts on his feet. 'Busted my knee last week at motocross,' he says. 'Can't fucking declutch without my whole leg screaming in agony. Doctor said no more bikes, no more cars, not for at least three months.'

Pete hisses through his teeth in sympathy. 'Wait, you went to the doctor? Voluntarily?' 

Frank Iero's lack of ability to like … not destroy himself … isn't exactly a secret around the scene. Pete's seen him take on a few stunts that no one should be able to bounce from, and yet. 

'I dragged him,' says Toro, looking fondly down at Iero as if he's a puppy. 

Iero punches him in the side but doesn't lean away afterwards, like he needs Toro to take his weight. Maybe he does. Maybe he just likes being close to his friends. It's legit, and kind of sweet. 

Except Leto's watching them too, Pete realises, and it just … it raises his hackles. Even just seeing the fucker ruins everything. All of a sudden, Pete just wants a hoodie and an escape route home, or something to distract him from the itch to just go over there and punch that bastard in the mouth.

Gerard never does confess what he won, but the Toro-Iero Braintrust leaves not long after Andy finally stops cooking, and both Ways leave with them. Saporta vanishes into thin air, leaving behind a lingering smell of hairspray and -- score -- a hoodie Pete's pretty sure he forgot he was sitting on on someone's tailgate. Whatever, it's Pete's hoodie now. Fate provides, y'know.

Andy packs up his gear and frowns at Pete for helping badly. 

'It's excellent helping,' Pete protests.

Andy shakes his head. 'Get in the fucking truck, Wentz.'

For once, he doesn't have to tell Pete twice. Plenty of other people are still out, probably planning on partying til dawn, but the fun doesn't seem that interesting all of a sudden. Pete crawls into the passenger seat and sighs, relieved that they're finally going home.

***

'--it's fucking ridiculous, no one just _turns up_ like that and wins races, Andy.'

Andy sighs and puts down his toolbox in its place on the bench. Pete's already halfway up the stairs to the loft with his arms amazingly empty of anything actually heavy.

'Like, these Way kids … they just appeared out of nowhere? But I was talking to Vicky, and it sounds like maybe they were in some deep shit before they showed up on the scene--' Pete's fading in and out of Andy's hearing, because he's inside now, but he left the door open, and at least it sounds like he's boiling water for tea, so maybe Andy will forgive him. 

'I still don't care, Pete,' he calls through what passes for a wall between the garage and the livable bit of the building, stripping his grease-stained shirt over his head and dumping it in the pile of extra-dirty garage clothes for washing later -- i.e., when it's not three am. 

Pete comes back with two mugs and plops them on the bench. 'You can't tell me you don't want to know at least a little bit,' he accuses. 

There's a spoon in one mug, indicating the addition of sweetener. Andy takes the other one. 

'For fuck's sake, Pete will you at least do something useful? You could be changing the oil in that Evo while you bitch at me.'

Pete doesn't sleep well after a race, because his blood is up or something, and he's a fucking insomniac anyway. Andy's got some good earplugs. He usually lets Pete work out his itchiness usefully down here with the easy overnight jobs. It works out pretty good for everyone. He sips his tea and watches as Pete gets himself set up, propping the hood of the Evo up, going back to find a bottle of oil, then for a rag, then to take his shirt off. 

He doesn't stop talking, and even with his head stuck in the engine bay, all the shiny metal surfaces do nothing to muffle the words. 'Also, I heard something about one of them being in too deep with something, so that's why--'

Andy rolls his eyes. 'Jesus Christ. Seriously, Pete. It's none of our business.'

Eventually the tea runs out and Pete's patience with engines also runs out, so they collapse on the couch -- not the sitting room one. That one, even Andy will admit, needs replacing. But the one up in the loft is comfy, and Pete 'the perpetually touch-starved' Wentz snuggles up as close as Andy will allow. Andy sighs, finicking with his laptop until he's queued up a set of Youtube reruns of _The Young And The Restless_ , because nothing makes Pete drop off faster than unrealistic drama and a cuddle.

Andy's head starts to nod, too. When he wakes up, the autoplay has run into some kind of deep web surrealist video playthrough, and Pete's warm and kind of sweaty against his side. Andy's back protests. He peels himself away, muttering a 'shut up' when Pete fidgets. 

Pete does shut up. And he lies down, too, thank Christ. Andy pulls the blanket that lives over the back of the couch for just this kind of occasion (Andy knows his housemate, okay?) up over Pete's bare shoulders. Then he heads to his own bed, shaking his head. 

It's always some kind of mystery drama, with new people in the scene. No one apparently ever just starts turning up because they like cars, or wins races because they're good at driving. At least not according to Pete's informants, or Pete. There's always something. 

In practice and reality, actually, there's almost never something, but they _talk_ as if there is, that's what gets Andy most.

He doesn't dismiss Pete's gossip entirely, though, because if there's one thing Pete has a genuine nose for, it's pretty boys and trouble. 

***

Pete drops the flag for seven more races, of which Gerard motherfucking Way somehow wins four, before the night when Andy finally turns around and picks him up, slings him over his shoulder, and basically piledrives him into the futon that counts as his bed in the loft. 

'Pete. Shut up,' he says. 

'It's not normal,' Pete complains, flailing uselessly at Andy, who folds his arms and stares at him. 

'The fact that Gerard's good at driving or that Mikey won't stop texting long enough to look at your booty shorts?'

'I just -- wait, what?'

Andy rolls his eyes. 'Pete. You literally used women's underwear as the flag tonight.'

'Hey, I bought them! They're _my_ underwear.'

'My point still stands.'

'It's a thing! Girls do that all the time! Sometimes they take their bras off on the starting grid to do it! It's legitimate showmanship and I won't stand here and have my craft insulted, thank you very much.'

'You're freeballing in my spare bed, feel free to leave,' says Andy. 'But while you're leaving, maybe think hard about the fact that you usually keep your underwear on until after the race, at least.'

Pete feels attacked. 'The ones I was wearing stayed on all night. The panties were just a spare.'

'And you still managed to drop your dignity with them on the starting grid. Impressive.'

'I'm a grid girl. Dignity isn't really in the job description.'

'Okay, Pete, just.' Andy scrubs one hand over his face in that specific way that Pete has learned to recognize as shorthand for _you're impossible_. 'Look, maybe Gerard is just good at this. He wouldn't be the first. And maybe -- try to come to grips with this -- you're not the kid brother's type.' 

Pete doesn't say he's everyone's type, because he's been friends with Andy for years and Andy is, in fact, the proof positive that Pete _isn't_ everyone's type. So he rolls his eyes instead. 

'I don't care about his type, I just want to know what their deal is.' 

'Uh-huh.' 

'I _don't_.'

'Well while you're not-caring, try to work on not looking like you care either.' 

Pete throws a pillow at him. Andy catches it and shoots it back.

'I'm going to make food,' Andy says. 'Whenever you get around to having some chill, feel free to join.'

***

Pete would like everyone to know that he is the _definition_ of chill.

Maybe not all the time (okay, not even most of the time) -- but he can be when he puts his mind to it. He stops pestering Andy even though Gerard keeps fucking winning in that piece of shit car, and Toro keeps looking worried and Iero ramps the 'twitchy but hypervigilant' up to eleven. Pete can't drag Andy off the path of willful ignorance, and he's not going to take shit for his _very mild_ not-crush in the meantime. 

'He definitely has a fuck-me Lolita-type thing going on.' Saporta leans against the side of his car, smirking in the general direction of where the Ways stand with Iero, Toro, and a few other mech guys. Mikey, as usual, has his phone out and looks entirely disaffected. A bass beat thrums so deeply Pete can basically feel it in the pavement. 'Ryland said he heard they ditched on some syndicate around Venice -- money laundering or something. But …' He huffs, watching Gerard laugh at something and tuck a bit of candy-apple red hair behind his ear. 'If they're trying to lay low, they're doing a pretty bad job of it.'

Pete has to agree. Between the two of them, the Ways have 'I dare you not to notice me' down to an art. 

Gerard wins again that night and Pete feels like he's going to have a conniption. Instead he has to settle for grabbing Gerard's wrist and throwing his arm in the air again -- and this time, people really fucking cheer. Gerard grins, something between a smirk and a bashful smile, like he can't quite believe his life. Pete envies him a little; he remembers what that felt like. So he gives Gerard's arm another shake and grins back.

Gerard's still wearing that bashful smile hours later at the party that the crowd turns into, when the sun's pretty much set and the heat is still like a bake oven off the concrete, and everyone's got a drink of some kind in hand. 

The Ways go for soda, Pete notes, but they act like they're drinking -- they're as loose as anyone else, as easy to smile and to smirk. Or at least Gerard is. Mikey barely ever looks up from his shoes, but he's never far from Gerard's side even if he never seems to be paying any attention to any of the actual conversation. 

It doesn't matter where Pete flits or who he's talking to, somehow that mop of straggly scarlet is always in his eye line and there's always a beanie and a pair of glasses next to it, and Pete's not looking, okay. Just because you keep seeing doesn't mean you're looking. 

And Gerard? He's … he's so fucking happy, it's palpable. The fact that he smiles like a sunbeam kind of highlights the fact that his brother doesn't, that's all. Well, sometimes he does, but it's only ever at Gerard and it's small and secretive and private. 

Whatever. Pete goes looking for Gabe, only to find him hanging with Andy, who's apparently hanging with Iero, presumably recipe swapping or some shit again. Pete has never seen two more unlikely fucking vegan comrades in his life but he's … glad they found each other or whatever, he guesses. 

Eventually Toro turns up, because he's attached to Iero like there's a rubber band between their ankles, and the Ways follow in his wake. It happens very naturally and it's probably just, like, a coincidence, but suddenly Pete realizes he's standing semi-close to the person he's been deliberately not looking at for three hours and that means he has to acknowledge that he's been deliberately not looking at him. 

So he looks at his shoes. He looks at his drink. He looks at the way Andy Hurley smirks at him over a water bottle because he's a smug motherfucker and a terrible friend. He looks at everything except overstraightened brown hair and a set of very long fingers wrapped around a cellphone. 

'Just a friendly piece of advice,' says a soft voice quietly near his ear. 'But I think you probably wanna chill over Mikey, yeah?'

Pete nearly snorts rum and coke out his nose. He twists enough to see that it's Gerard lounging casually up next to him against one of the lot's gross industrial walls, watching Mikey huff derisively at something Ray's saying. 

'I mean, like. It's just your odds aren't great,' Gerard continues, still very quietly and very close to Pete's ear, a private conversation. 

It's the shovel talk, Pete realises. He's getting the shovel talk over someone he's not actually planning on making a move on, let alone like, _dating_. 

He opens his mouth to say so, and to point out some things of his own; viz; he, Pete Wentz, is not looking to fucking uhaul with some borderline jailbait who won't even glance in his direction. 

But Gerard keeps talking. 

'Nothing against you, or your … charms, I guess,' he says. 'But like. Well. Hardly anyone who turns up at base camp actually summits, if you get what I'm saying? It's just numerical fact.'

Pete, not-looking at Mikey, can't help arching an eyebrow in outright disbelief. 

'Don't get me wrong, he's not a monk,' Gerard adds. 'Like. He fucking bags 'em and tags 'em. But the people who go after him? I'm just telling you, it never quite works out how they want.'

Gerard must say that at least loudly enough for someone else to hear, because oh. Look at that. Over the rhythm of the conversation, Pete hears Gabe Saporta -- best-friend-turned-traitor -- basically wheezing himself to death with what would otherwise be a cackle, if not for the drink he presumably inhaled. Frank Iero helpfully smacks him (kind of hard, honestly) on the back. 

'I mean, I get it. Mikey's great, and I'm sure you're great--'

Pete can't even answer. He's speechless. The brother of a guy he's _not even that into_ is giving him the let-down.

'--I'd totally give you my blessing, I'm sure, but I just want you to know it's probably not going to be an issue because like, your odds are not high. But no one's odds are high! So don't feel bad.'

Pete can't -- he keeps opening his mouth and having nothing to say because _what_? Like, first off, bullshit his odds aren't high, maybe no one's odds are high but he isn't just anyone, okay? But also … he wasn't. 

'I'm not--' he starts, and Gerard lays a sincere hand on his shoulder. 

'I think you're really great though; thanks for making everything so cool for us.'

Like, is this for real? Is Gerard for real?

Everyone around their little circle appears to have stopped talking to witness the moment Pete Wentz finally persuades the ground to open up and swallow him, like, he's pretty sure he's gonna manage it soon. Ray Toro is _giggling into his beer_. Pete's life is the worst.

And Mikey Way is looking at his phone again. Seriously. 

'You're … welcome?' Pete manages.

Gerard squeezes his shoulder like they just had some kind of really important and ultimately successful heart to heart. Pete just tips his cup in Gerard's general direction before draining what's left of the rum and coke in it. 

'Saporta, fucking make yourself useful,' he says, shoving his cup at Gabe, who's closer to the booze. 

He doesn't get drunk-drunk, but there's maybe more of an edge to take off this evening than usual, after that. Which is precisely why he protests when Andy makes the move to leave.

'It's 2 am.'

'So?'

Andy -- less gently than he could, if Pete's being frank -- disentangles himself from Pete's hug. 'I'm going to bed.'

'But I need you.'

'You need to go to sleep.'

'I never sleep.'

'No time like the present.'

'Thirty more minutes?'

Andy physically holds Pete at arm's length because he's a heartless monster. 'Are you five? No. I'm going home. Try not to break anything on your way in.'

Pete considers pulling out the big guns, because Andy usually agrees to things if it'll save him the embarrassment of a five minute monologue on love and brotherhood, but Andy shoves him in Gabe's direction before Pete gets a chance. 

'Keep an eye on her majesty,' he instructs.

Gabe snickers, but Pete appreciates the warmth when he loops an arm around Pete's shoulders. 'I believe it's Lady Onya Knees.'

Pete swats at Gabe and Andy rolls his eyes. 

'Play safe,' he calls over his shoulder.

Pete sighs, watching his retreat. Or he sighs as much as he's able; Gabe gives him a little squeeze. 

'C'mon. The night is young.'

Pete can't argue with that. He lets Gabe steer him away, in the direction of music and laughter.

***

Andy looks at his phone, which normally he charges in the evening when he gets home and ignores til he next leaves the loft, again. 

Still nothing.

More specifically, no text messages, and definitely not the bizarre semi-hardcore cover of Britney Spears' _Toxic_ that Pete set as the ringtone in Andy's phone two years ago. Andy's been pretending he doesn't know how to change it since then.

He's gone through his entire joblist for the day. Everything in the garage is sparkling clean, ready to run, and ready for pickup. 

He looks at his phone again. Outside, the sun is going down, lighting the city orange-pink and casting slanting grey shadows through the open garage door. Something twists in his stomach.

Pete's always on his phone. Pete's never six inches away from the thing. Andy has literally had to ask him to put it away at the dinner table, like he's Pete's mom, because sometimes he wants to have a conversation that doesn't involve Pete pretending at active listening. Pete not answering texts or picking up is not normal. Unless something bad's happened. Or unless he's getting laid in a serious way, but that's not exactly mutually exclusive with 'something bad happening'. 

Also sometimes, despite Andy repeatedly asking him not to, he texts during lulls in getting seriously laid, so there's that.

Andy sighs, rolls the garage door shut, locks it, takes one last look around the garage floor to check everything's squared away, and then heads upstairs, phone in hand. 

He bites his lip. But the sun going down and a full day with no word from Pete is just not fucking normal, and what else is he gonna do? Go paper the block with flyers that say HAVE YOU SEEN MY IDIOT HOUSEMATE? 

He blows out a hard breath, and dials Saporta's number. 

Gabe, to his credit, stops being a dick as soon as Andy brushes off his usual slightly disturbingly flirtatious greeting and asks him, 'When was the last time you saw Pete?' 

'Like … 4 am last night, I think?' Gabe says, all the bullshit out of his tone. 'God, I dunno, Hurley, I wasn't exactly looking at my watch. But yeah. Around four in the morning. I bailed after we got to Steve's diner.'

'Who was there?' Andy asks. 'Did he go home with someone? Was he looking like he might, y'know?'

Gabe huffs a strained laugh. 'Don't think so, dude. It was just like, him, me and the Ways by that point. Toro left just after you did, Iero didn't come out to the diner after we left the actual afterparty. There were a couple random stragglers, but like, they weren't with us, and he wasn't giving anyone the eye.'

'The Ways, though?'

'Look, I know what you're thinking, but all shit-talking aside dude, he's got no fucking chance with that kid, it'd be like scaling the north face of the Eiger.'

'So you don't think he's back at Toro's place?'

'Not unless he slipped sideways into a parallel dimension.'

'Fuck.' A cold feeling really starts to congeal in Andy's chest. 

Gabe sounds just as worried as he feels. 'Like, you really haven't heard from him all day? Dude, that's … '

'Yeah, I know.' Andy tries not to sound grim, but it doesn't work. He sighs, and it crackles through the microphone back at him. 'Just. Call me if he shows up at your place?'

'Of course,' Gabe says. 'Hey. Andy?'

'Yeah?' 

'Do me a favor? When he shows up again, let me know?' 

Gabe puts enough emphasis on the word 'when' that Andy knows he thought the word 'if' and didn't say it.

'I'll go one better. After I've fucking killed him, I'll make him call you himself and apologise for being a pain in the ass,' Andy promises, and hangs up.

***

Andy sleeps a little -- not enough, but he counts it as something. By 5:30 am, the sky's night dark runs into faintly lucent watery grey and he makes his way into the kitchen. Still nothing on the phone, but he sets the kettle to boil and shuffles two mugs out of the cupboard because he doesn't know what the worst case scenario could be in this instance, so he's not going to assume it happened. 

In the murk of fatigued memory, Pete, not _really_ drunk, but still too drunk for his own good, catches him in one of his sloppy, full-body hugs that Andy only tolerates because it's Pete. 

_C'mon, Hurley, you're leaving already?_ And his breath catches damp against Andy's jaw and smells of whatever shitty drink he was sharing with Saporta.

Andy yanks sugar out of the cupboard too, and dumps two spoonfuls in one of the mugs. 

He practically knocks said mug over when a huge, knocking sound warbles through the garage's roller door.

Not like he's timing, but it takes him approximately fifteen seconds to get to the shop's _actual_ back door. The hinges groan just a little bit and --

'Andy--' 

In the greyish not-quite-morning light, Pete has a big-eyed, sunken, sorry look. He huddles in on himself, just a little, probably because he's still wearing whatever bullshit not-enough-of-an-outfit outfit he had on when Andy last saw him -- _twenty-four fucking hours ago_. Andy could fucking hit him, right here, in the predawn quiet.

He doesn't, though. Instead he goes with:

'Let's get this out of the way: I'm going to murder you.'

'Andy, I'm sorry--'

'And you have a goddamn key, what are you--'

'I lost it.'

'What?'

Pete winces. 'It's a long story, and. Look. I know you told me to stay out of it, but …' 

Pete nods a little, off to his right, and Andy can only blame his complete and total outrage for the fact that he failed to notice an _extra fucking person_ on his doorstep. One Mikey Way, to be specific. Andy's knuckles go white around the doorjamb.

'Pete.'

Pete gives him a bloodshot but determined look. 'Do I have to do this on the sidewalk? He needs a place to crash.'

Andy grits his teeth but cedes enough to let them both in the door before he gives Mikey a pointed look.

'Don't you typically _have_ a place to crash?'

Mikey opens his mouth, then closes it. He has a grey, scared look about him, Andy realizes; a kind of unslept nervousness that Andy recognizes. Fear, ground down to filaments of raw nerves, usually by way of exhaustion. He looks back to Pete. 

'So -- is anyone going to tell me what happened?'

Pete only hesitates and looks at Mikey, who still just stands there like he's waiting to wake up from something.

'Or,' Andy tries, 'we could start with where you've been, maybe? Since you were supposed to help me with that Bluebird yesterday evening, and you never showed.'

Pete licks his lips. 'Uh. We were kind of at the hospital.'

'Kind of?'

Into the otherwise-quiet, Mikey blurts: 'Someone shot Gerard.'

He says it too loudly, like he can't quite hear himself, or like the fact of the matter is only just now occurring to him. 

'He's _alive_ ,' Pete adds, hastily, but Mikey keeps talking in that same, too-loud, dead-affect voice:

'There was a lot of blood.'

Pete winces. Andy -- well. There's a time and a place. He steadies himself for the sake of a traumatised kid. 

'Okay. C'mon. Let's go upstairs.'

The kettle whines as they pass the kitchen. Andy doesn't have to even tell Pete -- he ducks off to deal with it while Andy leads Mikey up the steps to the loft, and points him to the futon. 

'Sit,' he orders.

Mikey makes no protest, moving in weird, jerky gestures to settle himself down. Andy sighs and helps him wrestle his shoes off. 

'I'll grab some blankets and some extra pillows.' He watches Mikey stare at his hands. 'Mikey.' It wins him a tired, helpless look. Small battles. 'You're okay here. We've got it under control.'

Mikey just nods. Andy doesn't press for more, instead dropping Mikey's shoes by the futon so he'll have hands enough to gather up bedding. 

***

Pete pours two cups of tea, and then a third for good measure, and listens while the muffled sounds of Andy talking and Mikey … not talking … drift down to the kitchen. His whole head hurts, and the back of his neck, and the stretch of muscle between his shoulder blades. Something rusty fills his marrow.

He settles at the kitchen bar, trying to will himself to sip his tea, to focus only on the soft curls of steam blooming from the other two mugs -- but there's shattered glass behind his eyes, or the memory of it. Too many bright things, and then red, and then, finally, in that way where it also felt too loud and too late, the crash of sound. He scrubs a hand over his face.

'Okay, Pete.'

The sudden nearness of Andy's voice almost makes him fall off his stool.

'First of all,' Andy continues, hushed but stern, 'what the fuck?'

Before Pete can answer, he follows up with a few other key points, including: why the hell were you there in the first place; why the fuck didn't you call Iero; what even _happened_ ; what were you thinking; and then --

'Are you okay?'

Andy's close enough now to spread one hand against Pete's back. It's either too late or too early for all the other questions, and Pete isn't sure he'd have a good answer for any of them anyway, but he leans in until he can rest his head against Andy's shoulder. 

'I've been better.'

He doesn't know how he didn't, before this moment, notice how completely exhausted he is, but now it hits him all at once, adrenaline thinning out and leaving nothing in its wake. He feels for the way Andy's shoulder rises and falls; the natural rhythm of his breath. Andy gets one arm around his shoulders.

'You should sleep.'

'You need help in the shop--'

'You're so tired you'll drop a socket wrench on your foot and bitch for a week. Go sleep it off, Pete.'

'Andy.'

'I know, Pete. Me too. It's okay right now though.' Andy gives his shoulder a squeeze. 'Mikey's in the spare bed, but you can crash in mine.'

Pete doesn't argue. Loath though he is to pull away from Andy's warmth, he heads upstairs. Autopilot makes him lurch for the futon before he realizes that, just like Andy said, Mikey's in it. He freezes, a gritty, stinging feeling itching in his eyes. 

Sirens.

Then a too-bright waiting room, and a TV clipping through infomercials. 

A surgeon promised it would be okay.

Mikey didn't cry then, and he doesn't look like he's crying now; he just looks like he's sleeping, and that's strange. Or maybe it isn't. Pete twists away and drops onto Andy's bed, hearing a watery sound that isn't there.

He can't really fall asleep. He lays in the halflight, listening to Andy do whatever he's doing downstairs, and wondering at the weird feeling in his head. Like someone opened up a valve in his temple. He can hear Andy talking, like he's on the phone, and then the talking stops. It's full-blown daylight by the time Andy comes back up.

'You holding up?'

'I can't sleep.'

Andy sets a mug -- full with fresh tea -- down on the little end table between his bed and the futon. 'I figured.'

Pete sits up enough to reach for it. 'Thanks.'

Silence, pensive, but not uncomfortable, spreads out between them before Andy says softly:

'Pete, seriously. What happened?'

Pete looks at Mikey who hasn't moved at all in the last three hours, and who's still breathing like he's asleep. He sighs.

'I don't know. We were leaving Steve's. Like, not _together_. We were all just … A car pulled up, and--' He looks down at the tea. 'He wouldn't let me call Iero or Toro.'

'So your next best idea was to bring him here?'

'What else was I going to do? Leave him on the side of the road?'

Andy sounds tired when he says: 'You could have just walked him back to Toro's.'

Pete's mouth thins out. 'Sorry for the inconvenience.'

A sigh. 'No -- Sorry. That was shitty.' Andy gives him a long look. 'But as far as near-death experiences go, you've had your share without having to opt-in on someone else's drama. So what are you trying to do?'

Pete stares into his tea. Shrugs. Heat prickles over his ears and he doesn't know if that's because he _is_ stupid or because he just _feels_ stupid. 'For the record, I didn't at any point in the near or distant past try to fuck him.'

'Pete -- what? I'm worried you're a bleeding heart, not a sexual predator.' 

'Oh.'

'You're unreal.'

All of a sudden, he can't countenance the tea, never mind drink it, so he sets the mug back down.

'It was really bad, Andy.'

'I know.' 

He sounds gentle when he says it, and sad, and for whatever stupid reason, Pete feels so grateful. There wasn't any twisted up metal, no one had to get pulled out of a smoking car -- but it may as well have happened like that. They strapped Gerard to a gurney and there was, as Mikey said, so much blood.

Andy gets an arm around him to squeeze his shoulder. 'Are you gonna be able to sleep?'

Pete's mouth twists. 'I don't think so.'

'Okay, well. Rest at least. I'll have food ready in an hour.'

***

By the time Pete's nose alerts him that breakfast is imminent, his eyeballs feel boiled, and the sunshine slanting through the high windows is bright enough to make him wince on his way down to the kitchen. He slumps onto one of the barstools, feeling like garbage. He should probably also have actually changed his clothes at some point. 

'I can't drag them into this,' is Mikey's sole concession to some kind of an explanation for why he wouldn't let Pete call Ray and Frank at the hospital.

Pete stares down at the breakfast … lunch … some kind of meal in front of him. He's pretty sure kale isn't supposed to be a breakfast food, but given that Andy appears to be the world's first entirely kale-based organism he gave up being surprised at seeing it on his plate years ago. 

'Bad news, kiddo,' says Andy, still handling Mikey carefully. Not gentle, but … like he's a piece of glass Andy's being very careful not to drop. 'They're probably going to notice when you and your brother don't come home for two days. 

'Yeah,' says the hard voice of a probably fairly pissed-off Frank Iero from behind Pete. 'We noticed.'

Mikey startles so hard that his stool overbalances and Pete has to catch him by the shoulder. It must have been a shitty night for Andy, too, for him to have just left the door to the garage unlocked.

'You okay, Mikes?' says Ray, and Pete manages to manhandle Mikey til they're both facing in the right direction, and then lets him go. 'Where's Gerard?'

Mikey's face crumples. Pete goes to try and explain and just … Frank looks murderous already and Ray has approximately the same expression Andy did when Pete finally rolled up here with Mikey in tow and … and he doesn't know what to say. Nothing, literally nothing he _can_ say will make this better. Gerard's in the hospital and okay they said he would be okay but who even knows, right? There could be complications, or--

Pete snaps back to reality, aware that Andy's explaining what happened when Ray cuts in: 'Who did it?'

Next to Pete, Mikey shrinks away again.

Frank fucking _vibrates_ with rage. 'Whoever it was I'm gonna fucking kill them,' he snarls. 

Pete still feels kind of numb but he agrees. He'd hold Frank's coat. Or someone could hold both their coats. 

'Yeah, well,' says Andy. 'Before you can kill anyone we're going to have to figure that out. Who did it, and why. Maybe in the opposite order.' He makes a noise in the back of his throat. 'For example: who the hell would want to shoot _Gerard_?'

The texture of the air next to Pete changes, like Mikey's shifted on his feet. Everyone's attention snaps to him. 

'Mikey?' says Ray gently. Properly gently, softly, and if it was Pete being talked to like that he'd be fucking bawling his eyes out already. 

But Mikey isn't Pete. He bristles, brittle. 'What?'

Frank rolls his eyes. 'You wanna, like, share with the class?'

'No.'

'...dude,' says Frank flatly, and yeah, he's being blunt and Pete feels kind of bruised by proxy, but it's somehow shaking Mikey out of his shell. 'What the fuck. C'mon.'

Mikey picks at the cuticle lining on one nailbed. It's the most Pete's seen him move in an hour, but hey. Displacement activity is better than catatonia. 

'It's a long story,' he says eventually. 

'Do you see us going anywhere?' Frank asks, folding his arms across his chest. 'Seriously, how the fuck are we gonna figure out how to help if you don't tell us anything?'

Mikey chews his lip; chapped skin comes free. The flush of red that wells up after sticks in Pete's brain, lipstick-like; that and the way it vanishes when Mikey licks what he just tore open.

'It's … it's fucked up,' Mikey says. 

'Gee got _shot_ , of course it's fucked up,' Frank snarks back. 

That makes Mikey wince, but he shrugs it off, shoulders rolling like he's literally shedding it like weight. 'We … used to. Run in bad circles.' He rubs at his arm, more displacement activity maybe, or maybe it hurts - he hit the pavement hard seconds after Gerard did, scrambling to grab his brother - Pete wouldn't be surprised if he'd done himself an injury. He should have checked for that, now that he thinks of it ... 'Like -- both of us. We were … on shit, buying shit. Selling shit. I don't know.'

Ray looks sad. Frank looks … intensely unsurprised, and Pete's kind of with him on that. He had no idea and yet at the same time, looking at Mikey, thinking about the way he's never had anything stronger than a soda in his hand at an afterparty, the way he and Gerard are both so tweakily intense in their own ways -- it's the most predictable thing in the world. 

Nevertheless, Pete doesn't know where to look.

Andy breaks the silence. 'Go on,' he says, gently but firmly.

Mikey exhales, slowly, like it costs him something. 'We're clean now, I promise. We are, but -- I don't know. Gee got in bad with … some shitty people, before we walked. Like bad blood, I mean. Pissed some guys off because he wouldn't take their shit--' his breath hitches, just that much.

Pete wants to put his arm around the guy really badly, but he thinks Iero might tear it off if he does. He's got a whole mama bear vibe going on, and it's not just him. Maybe Frank's the one who's visibly ready to throw down at the slightest provocation but Pete's almost more worried about the supernatural, sad calm radiating off Ray Toro, because there's no way that isn't hiding something red hot underneath. 

'It was my fault,' says Mikey quietly. 'It was because I got caught in the wrong place. So … I don't know. We walked. And it sucked, it _still sucks_.'

He looks tortured. The fact that his life still sucks is, yeah, pretty clearly reading through to Pete. 

Still dangerously quiet, Ray asks, 'So who, out of all that, would come for Gerard?'

Mikey switches from picking at his cuticle to biting at it. 'I don't know.' He gives Ray a tired look, and, Christ, Pete sympathizes. 'The last we saw anyone, we were still out in Venice Beach. I … didn't think someone would follow us here.'

Pete catches Andy watching Mikey; it's not hard to tell what he's thinking. Venice has its reputation, but there's shit here too, on fringes of the scene. He wouldn't go so far as to drop _drug syndicate_ into the mix, but there's nothing new under the sun or whatever. 

'Anyone you could name, at least?' Ray keeps his eyes on Mikey; keeps his tone gentle. Even still--

Mikey just shakes his head. 'No.'

Obviously. Pete can't imagine crimelords are big on sharing their identities with bottom-rung drug runners. Still, someone knew enough to know Mikey and Gerard's names. Someone cared enough to follow up on a grudge. 

'You guys should stay here.' He says it before he really thinks about it -- and when he _does_ think about it, he knows it's not his place to offer. It's Andy's fucking loft, after all. 

But no one worry, Iero's at the bit before Andy can protest. 

'Back the fuck up, Wentz. Who made you the ringleader?'

Pete just stares at him. 'Which one of us was at the hospital for six fucking hours, Iero? Huh? Which one of us called the fucking ambulance? And which one of us only just rolled up this second? Like, if you think I'm overstepping, you really missed your window.'

'Yeah, well, we all know how things turn out when you roll up to help,' Frank snarks. 'You think Mikey, or, hell, any of us, are better off under your watch?'

Pete's extremely aware of Andy crossing his arms, just on the periphery of Pete's vision, but he can't stop himself. 'Really?' he asks Frank. 'You really wanna do this? You really wanna _fucking go_ with me right now?'

Mikey stands frozen beside Pete, and Andy clears his throat, starts to say _'Pete--'_ but Frank's already talking. 

'If I recall correctly your idea of help is the whole reason you don't get behind the wheel any more,' he sneers, his eyes bright with a hot, specific cruelty. 

Pete's lip curls. Two can play at that game. 'Yeah? You should thank me -- with me off the starting grid you almost get to look like you're good at something.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'I dunno, what do you think, Iero?'

'You wanna put your money where your shit-talking mouth is, Wentz?' Frank snaps back at him, and Pete's blood is up now, he's bouncing on the balls of his feet, fucking furious, fucking sleep-deprived and mad as hell about everything in the last twenty-four hours but particularly about this. He could almost thank Iero for giving him the fight he needs right now.

'Yeah, actually, I really fucking do. Get at me. C'mon. Let's fucking race, if that's what you want.'

He shouldn't. But he's fucking gonna. 

'Well then, what are we fucking waiting for?' Frank spits, and storms out the garage door, his gait awkward and jerky, twisting like it hurts and he doesn't care. 

Ray makes a noise that's got words in it that he mostly swallows, although Pete makes out 'knee' before he realises that a) Frank's already gone and b) Pete ... doesn't have a fucking car anymore. Not one that's race-ready. He shoots a look at Andy and Andy's mouth twists, quietly angry, pissed in the I'm-not-forgetting-this-later-just-because-I-love-you way, but he shuffles through the mess of keyrings on the bench and throws Pete a set of keys. 

Outside, Pete can already hear Iero revving the engine on his literal tractor of a fucking Subaru. Pete blips the lock button on the keyfob Andy tossed him and figures out he's got the Bluebird he was supposed to have helped with the transmission on last night, which might be coincidence and might be Andy's way of making a point, but whatever, it runs now and Pete throws himself into the driver's seat with more than a fucking frisson of excitement and something a lot like rage, like he's been bottling it up and the fizz is turning into a shattering force.

Andy grabs his arm before he can close the door, though. He gives Pete a hard look. 

'Chill,' says Pete, biting the word off. 'It's not a real fucking race. And he's being a shit and he needs to shut the fuck up, okay?'

'Pete,' says Andy, but he sighs instead of saying anything else, and lets go so that Pete can yank the door shut and start the engine. The last thing Pete sees before he throws his arm over the passenger seat back and looks behind to back out of the garage is Mikey's face, eyes huge and dark behind his glasses. 

Frank's already got his WRX toeing the line formed by the intersection at the end of the street, and when Pete pulls up alongside him he revs it just to make a point. Yeah, okay, he's got a lot of grunt and a good four wheel drive system in that thing, but Subarus are _heavy_. The Bluebird's a featherweight in comparison and Pete can use that. Frank cuts him a look that's pure provocation, so Pete flips him the bird, and then the light goes green, and they're racing, old school, stop light to stop light. Some part of Pete feels lighter than air, flies like a bird. He shifts up, up, up again, foot flat to the floor, and Iero's right there next to him, pulling some kind of magic out of that fucking car and his face is grim, he's biting his lip white, and his upshifts aren't short enough, they're just not. 

Pete edges a nose out in front, and knows he's gonna win. He's got this, he can feel it in his bones. Iero's making him work for it - if he misses his next gear change he's fucked -- but he's _got this_. 

They fly past the light. There's a squealing noise and a barrage of car horns and it doesn't matter because they were both too fast to get T-boned at the junction. They haul to a stop as soon as there's clear space to park. 

Frank gets out of the car heavily, like he's in serious fucking pain, but he grins at Pete and shakes his head, holds his hand out. Pete's rage at him goes up in smoke, somehow sublimated and smoothed off by how sweet and pure it feels to just drive as fast as you can and damn the consequences. 

He realises he's never actually raced Frank before, and that he's almost sad about it. They would have had fun, back in the day.

'You're fucking good,' says Pete, shaking the proffered hand. 'You almost had me.'

'I did fucking have you,' says Frank, laughing a little. 'If I hadn't fucked up changing into third you'd be eating my dust, Wentz.'

'Yeah, yeah,' Pete says, and Frank goes to step back but he stumbles. Pete catches him around the shoulder. 'Aaand on that note, I'm driving you back. Toro can come get your tractor later.'

'Fuck you,' says Frank, but there's no bite to it. 

Pete opens the door for him like the perfect gentleman he is. When they get back, two minutes later, he helps Frank back out of the passenger's side, too. Frank swats at him, but it's pretty obvious he's not exactly going anywhere fast without assistance, so Pete doesn't let go. 

As they get inside, Pete blinks in the relative darkness of the garage, after the sunshine outside, and tunes into the conversation in time to hear Andy say, 'well, that's true, but seriously, if someone is actually after Gerard, they've probably figured out they didn't finish the job. They're going to be looking for him, and it's not a secret that he and Mikey are staying with you guys. So clearing out of your place for a night or two is probably a survival tactic.' He gestures up at the loft. 'I don't have a heap of space, but if you don't mind sharing, you guys are welcome.'

'Thanks, man,' says Ray in his soft voice. 'That's really kind of you. Oh, hey Frank, Pete.'

Pete blinks. Beside him, he's pretty sure Frank's jaw has actually physically dropped. 

'Who won?' Andy asks. 'We're all pretty much sorted out here, if you're done, y'know. Measuring?'

Pete hates Andy a lot.

***

It's about half past eleven at night when everyone finally starts to sack out. Toro ordered pizza for dinner, citing the fact that Andy had fed them lunch while refusing to let him split the bill. There hadn't even been the usual exhausting stoush about the cheese situation, because Toro picked up a vegan supreme and handed it off to Frank and Andy without even a word. 

Now, Andy picks up drinking glasses and does his usual check-around and lock-up before bed, moving as quietly as he can because he's got a trauma case in his spare bed upstairs and the trauma case's two best friends on camping mattresses on the floor, when he notices there's still a light on in the garage. 

Andy puts the last can in the recycling and goes for the garage. 

Pete has his head in the guts of a Civic that needs a tune-up, but all he appears to be doing is cleaning the engine bay. Which is good--he's not actually a mechanic and while Andy likes to have help around the garage, the kind of help he likes is mostly things like 'hey Pete, can you hand me that ring-spanner,' and 'hey Pete, can you change out the water in that Nissan'. 

'Pete,' he says, softly. Sound carries in this place. 

'Hey,' Pete doesn't look up from where he's pushing a soft rag that was probably a pair of his own boxers once upon a time around the engine block. 'Time for that peptalk, huh?'

'You're kind of a fucking idiot, you know that?' Andy says, gently, settling against the Civic's driver's side door. It lets him watch Pete work from about the only angle he can get where he can see his actual face, since Pete has apparently decided to not straighten up and converse like an adult. 'We've been trying to stay out of this kind of shit for years.'

'Tell me how you would have handled it,' Pete says basically at the turbo intake, 'and I'll gladly go back in fucking time and remind past-me to think logically while I watch someone get fucking shot.'

Andy rolls his eyes. 'You know full well I would have done exactly the same thing,' he says, because it's true. 'I'm not talking about Mikey.' This is strictly factual and Andy refuses to qualify it with anything. 'You got behind the wheel today.'

'I drove you to the fucking supermarket a week ago, Andy, chill. It's not like I lost my license.'

The desire to grab Pete by the shoulders and shake him like he's a bad puppy is something Andy has wrestled with on a biweekly basis since they were in their teens. He resists, yet again. 'Can you stop being obstructive for two seconds? You raced, Pete. You raced in broad fucking daylight. You said you'd never--'

'For fuck's sake. I drove between two sets of fucking stop lights. If that's a race then my mom's the Indy 500 champion.'

'It was a pissing contest. An unnecessary pissing contest. An unnecessary _risk_.'

Pete jerks up, unhooking the hood from its prop like that's what's fucking him off. He does catch himself enough to set it down gently, and takes a deep breath. Dusts his hands off on the seat of his shorts. When he speaks again, he sounds very deliberately measured. 'You're making a big deal out of nothing.' 

'It's not _nothing_ , Pete--'

'--I'm not dead, am I--'

'--and I don't want to see you back in the fucking ICU.' Andy says it louder than he meant to, and the words snap. 

It stings, clearly. Pete gives him a dark look. 'Or what?'

Andy sighs, suddenly tired. 'Or nothing, Pete. Just … try not to join Gerard in there.'

'Doing my best,' says Pete, but there's an autopilot tone to it that Andy doesn't like. 

'Go to bed,' Andy tells him. 'Couch. Whatever.'

'Can't sleep.' 

'You've been up for nearly forty eight hours, will you at least lay the fuck down?'

'Andy--'

'Don't make me carry you, Wentz.'

In the end Andy doesn't have to carry him but he does push him until he folds onto the upstairs couch, and then spreads the blankets over him. 'I don't care if you can't sleep, but if you get up before I call you for breakfast tomorrow I'll skin you alive.'

Pete's already nosing his face into the pillow with his eyes half shut. 'Mmf,' he says, flailing a hand at Andy. 

The sharp edges of their argument sluice away. As the garage settles into quiet, so does Pete.

' "Can't sleep" my ass,' Andy murmurs, petting him because he's so dozy he won't remember in the morning.

It's a warm reminder, Pete's hair feathered soft against his palm. Alive and unhurt. Two years ago, Andy wasn't so sure he'd ever be able to say that again. He can imagine what it was like for Mikey and Pete to sit in a shitty, cold waiting room -- too afraid to hope for the best and too numb to imagine the worst -- because it wasn't so long ago that he'd been in that exact same situation. 

He looks down at Pete drifting off to sleep. 

They had their crew once -- him and Pete and Joe and Patrick. Just like Iero and Toro and these waifish Ways. But there are some storms people can't weather, and every now and again, Andy wonders, viciously, how exactly Patrick lives with himself for ditching when shit got rough, even though he knows that's not really fair.

He pets Pete's hair one more time, listens for how he breathes, and then gets up and goes to bed.


	2. Chapter 2

One week into their new arrangement, and Pete can tell that Mikey's going stir-crazy. 

Not that he can blame him. 

The loft isn't built for five. The loft, frankly, isn't really built for two, but for the last two and a half years, he and Andy have made it work -- with more than a few cutting fights. But now they have three extra people crammed onto whatever passes for floorspace and, all told, he feels like he's going to crawl out of his skin, or get into another fight with Iero, or both.

And he's not the one with a brother in the hospital.

Mikey's way of dealing with this, apparently, is sitting around the loft in total silence, chewing at his thumbnail or jiggling his leg. Pete feels a horrible itch under his skin just watching him

'C'mon,' he says on morning eight, clapping Mikey's shoulder on his way out of the kitchen. 

Mikey looks after him. 'What?'

'C'mon, down to the garage.'

Mikey follows without protest, and Pete grabs a set of keys on the way. He tells himself a story about how he isn't being petulant or indulgent -- they're all on edge, and _talking_ about cars isn't going to hurt anyone. And that's what he'll tell Andy, too, should he get back from wherever he went at an inopportune moment.

He swings open the passenger door on the Bluebird, and nods for Mikey to go to the driver's side. It's not until they're both sitting in the car, with little more than an arm's space between them, that Pete fully realizes what he's committed himself to. Ever one for foresight, Wentz.

Mikey just looks at him.

Ignoring the crawly feeling in his stomach, Pete reaches over him enough to turn the key. It puts them very close, for the stuttering split of a second until the starter motor fires. 

'What are we doing?' Mikey asks, watching him lean back out of the way. His hands have gone to ten and two on the wheel on autopilot. The parking brake is on and the centre console is juddering in neutral. Pete feels like he's pushing them both off a precipice, all of a sudden.

'Passing the time,' he offers.

'Driving?'

'Learning about cars.'

'...by driving.'

'Well, if you want to get technical about it. Can you drive stick?'

'Yeah.'

Pete grins. 'Already ahead of the curve, then.'

Mikey looks from him to the dash, and then back again, like there's something he doesn't get. 'This isn't really my thing.'

'You'd rather sit around tweaking out all day?'

'I'm not tweaking out.'

'You just do the antsy nailbiting thing for the aesthetic?'

Mikey stares at him for such a long time that Pete thinks he might have sincerely overstepped. 'Fine.' 

He puts the Bluebird into reverse and carefully backs out of the garage into the street. Pete watches him, and the further they get from the garage, the more incredulous he gets. Mikey's hands are still at ten and two on the wheel, he granny-shifts carefully, he comes to a complete stop at every stop sign and he checks his mirrors religiously. He's textbook. He's so unlike his brother in technique that it's startling -- because he _has_ no technique, not that isn't straight out of Driver's Ed. 

Watching him drive a Nissan Bluebird is like watching someone hire a stripper to do the Birdy Dance with them fully clothed at their grandparents' diamond wedding anniversary. Pete itches to say something. Tell him to listen for when he needs to change gear, rather than watching the dials. Tell him about double declutching, maybe -- but all they're doing is driving around suburbia, doing the speed limit. It's not necessary. Pete knows Andy wants him to fly under the radar -- this is exactly how you drive to fly under the radar. Something of how he feels must show in his face, though, because Mikey cuts a look at him while they're idling at a stop light. 

'What?'

Pete shrugs. 'Nothing.'

Mikey taps his fingers on the steering wheel. 'Okay.'

Pete glances at him, because he can recognize a baiting tone when he hears one. Not that it stops him. 'Okay?'

Mikey keeps his eyes on the road. 'Yeah.'

'Okay, _what_?'

'Nothing.' 

Pete starts to say something -- probably something incendiary, he's not sure; he's still learning his way around the whole 'think before you speak' adage -- but the words die in his throat when he sees the corner of Mikey's mouth curl up, just so. Mikey must notice, because he smiles that much more. 

Pete huffs, catching himself at a half grin before he can totally cede victory to Mikey. 'Cute.'

The light clicks to green and Mikey upshifts with enough care that you'd think they were driving fine china around in the back seat. 'I know.'

It loosens something that had been tight in Pete's chest.

'You don't have to drive the _exact_ speed limit, you know.'

'Maybe.'

'Maybe?'

Mikey shrugs, and that shadow of a half-smile doesn't go anywhere. 'Does it bother you if I do?'

'No, I just--'

Mikey gives him a sidelong look, and there's something so deeply surreal about this whole moment. It occurs to Pete how little he actually knows this kid, how they're suddenly teetering on the edge of something _friendly_ \-- and how, under all that, there's still a rubbed-raw feeling. Shadows darkening the hollows of Mikey's eyes.

'Just?' Mikey presses.

'There's no one around,' Pete points out. 'I mean, you _could_ go a little faster.'

'Why, though? We're not in a hurry.'

Pete bites his lip. 'It's fun?' he tries. 'C'mon, Mikey, you never rode your bike down a hill as a kid just to … feel it?'

'I like having my front teeth still in my face,' Mikey says. He shifts a little in his seat, though, and Pete almost doesn't quite believe it when the car lurches forward like he's actually put his foot down. 'How's that?'

'Daring.' He's going for sardonic, but he can't help grinning. 'Y'know, there's like, a whole hundred more mph in this thing you're not using.'

'We're in a residential area,' Mikey points out, but when Pete looks over at the dash, the needle is actually wavering a visible increment above the speed limit. 'What if there're kids around?'

'Take a right here,' says Pete, and Mikey dutifully indicates, slows, checks his mirrors, takes the corner, shifts back up -- 'Oh my god, it's like driving with my mom again,' Pete says before he can stop himself. 

'Fuck you,' says Mikey easily. 

'Straight on through here.'

'Where are we going?'

'Somewhere with no kids.'

Pete directs Mikey to the outskirts of the neighborhood. 'Okay, hang here for a sec,' he says when they pull up, because there's a literal roadblock. Well, a gate. Pete knows this one though, and the padlock's old, rusted, and, to be quite honest, it got cut through with boltcutters about three years ago and never repaired, because the developers ran out of capital before they could actually finish this block. This is an old, familiar playground. He climbs out of the car, unhooks the remains of the padlock, ushers Mikey through with his best ground-crew stiff-arm waving, and then hooks it all back up again. 

Mikey sits with the engine idling, waiting for Pete to slip back into the passenger's seat. 'Are we supposed to be here?'

'No,' says Pete, because duh. 'Will anyone care that we are? Also no. And there's no one here to run out into the road, no stop lights, no inconvenient speed cameras.' He turns to Mikey and now he really is grinning, he can't stop himself. 'You're gonna let this thing off the chain and then you'll see why it's fun, okay?'

Mikey's smiling at him, but he still seems wary. 'Alright,' he says. 'So I just, what, put my foot down?'

'Four left turns and you've done a lap,' Pete says. 'Easy peasy. Let's see how fast you can do it when you're not checking your mirrors, huh?'

Mikey shrugs and sort of squares up to the wheel, shakes his shoulders out like he's got something knotted up in his spine, and turns the key again, turns the engine over. 

He still does fucking check his mirror when he goes for the first corner, and Pete feels him ease off the accelerator and says, over the sagging engine note, 'Keep your foot down, man.'

'Or I could like, choose life?' Mikey says, the steering wheel hissing through his hands as he corners. 

'This thing can handle a corner,' says Pete, rolling his eyes. 'Seriously, dude. I'm not saying you need to be Ayrton fucking Senna, I'm just saying you can actually keep some of the speed you built up in the straight to carry you around the bend, okay?'

'Fine.' Mikey takes the next corner not entirely at the walking pace of an elderly corgi. 

'See?' Pete says gleefully. Mikey's foot is still down, unbelievably. The speedometer climbs. He downshifts for the third corner but not all the way down. 'See, Mikey, you got this.'

The fourth corner is almost a blur, close enough that Pete's cheeks are burning with the stretch of his grin by the time Mikey brings the car to a halt back where they started. 

'Hey, that was great.' Pete twists in his seat so he can look Mikey in the face, pat him on the shoulder. 'You wanna take another spin?'

Mikey turns enough that he can prop one elbow on the steering wheel, his opposite shoulder filling all of Pete's palm. In the sudden dilating stretch of a moment, he looks at Pete, dead-on, that faint smile twisting the corner of his mouth again. 

'You're kind of a weirdo, you know that?'

Pete -- well, he wouldn't say he gapes, but he probably does something very close to it, because a beat too many passes and Mikey's eyes glitter. He pulls it together enough to protest: 

'You were crashing with Iero. I thought weirdo was, like, what you did.'

Mikey just keeps looking at him. 'I don't mind it.'

Pete doesn't really know why he smirks because it feels like he's encouraging something that he probably shouldn't encourage, but fuck it. This is the most fun he's had in days, the weird razor edge of exhaustion notwithstanding. 

'So you're gonna give it another go?'

'Maybe.' He lets another beat pass, and Pete is very acutely aware of the fact that his hand is basically trapped between Mikey and the seatback. 'Or you could show me how it's done.'

Something in Pete's chest flutters, just in the space between his heart and his sternum, but he knows a misdirect when he sees one and he's not going to let Mikey charm his way out of this. 

'Nice try.' He grins again. 'This is your show.'

Mikey turns to face the windshield again, the car humming in park under them. 'I guess.' When he looks at Pete this time, something in his face softens, and he chews a bit of chapped skin off his bottom lip again. 'You just. You're like Frank and Gerard. You sound like you really fucking love it. And I…' He sighs. 'I dunno. Doesn't do it for me, I guess.' 

For a minute, Pete thinks the moment is going to turn morose, but then Mikey smiles again in that small, quiet way.

'This is fun, though,' he says. 'I'd do this again.'

It's like fucking daybreak, whatever small bridge they're building. Pete doesn't quite know what to call it, but he'll take it; the companionable happiness, the gentle teasing. He can't stop fucking grinning -- and what a relief that is, after all the itching in his brain that won't let him settle down; after all the days spent edging around his own and everyone else's low-grade irritation. He says out loud: 

'Well. Anytime you want.'

Mikey cuts him a look, his smile turning just a little bit smug. 'Sweet.'

***

Pete feels like he's really achieved something, the next few times Mikey asks _wanna go out?_. They don't exactly sneak out but there's a definite feeling of playing hooky to it -- squirrelling away to convenience stores to buy the kind of shitty junk food Andy won't countenance in the loft; chocolate chip cookies and donuts, beef jerky and milkshakes. They get buttery fingerprints on the steering wheel and the dash, and Pete should feel guilty, and doesn't. 

'They're just cookies,' Mikey says. 

Pete groans at him around a mouthful because that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. 

'They're not _just cookies_. They've got eggs and lard and milk and butter and … god. No fucking applesauce or chia seeds or whipped chickpea water. These are real cookies.' He swallows the rest of his mouthful and sighs. 'I've been functionally vegan for like three years, dude, I'd literally kill a man for a steak, but Hurley would _know_.'

'Does he give you the lectures?' Mikey asks, passing Pete the cookie bag again. 'The thing about the baby chickens?' 

'Oh god, Iero too?'

Mikey rolls his eyes and nods, dumping the cookie bag in Pete's lap and reaching for the radio dials. He likes pop and oldies and weird shit, Pete's learning -- he likes Britney Spears as much as he likes Muse and the Misfits, will chase anything with a beat up and down the airwaves til he can zero in on something crackle free and catchy. It makes such a break from the diet of Slayer and Cannibal Corpse and endless fucking Megadeth, as much as the cookies do from Andy's all-kale regime. 

Who could blame Pete for liking it?

He adamantly doesn't acknowledge the look Andy gives him every time he grabs the keys to the Bluebird and tosses them to Mikey because a) they aren't even doing anything wrong, b) Mikey's doing the driving, not him, and c) Mikey never actually breaks 70 mph so, have some chill, Hurley, that's all Pete's trying to say. 

They joyride -- or at least get as close to joyriding as they possibly can with Mikey's unbreakable caution -- around two lots and a definitively off-limits concrete ravine under derelict overpasses down by the shore. Pete tries, to no avail, to get Mikey to floor it enough to work the car up onto the slant of the ravine. 

'You really like this,' Mikey observes, after no insignificant amount of pestering on Pete's behalf.

'Obviously.' The car idles, and ahead of them the sunlight catches in a very long, very bright bar on the surface of what is probably filthy runoff rainwater. Pete tilts his head to one side, tugging at a bit of hair. 'I don't get how you don't, dude.'

Mikey shrugs. 'I dunno. I like. Drive to the grocery store.'

'Well you can _also_ do that.' Pete gestures, trying to encompass something that feels self-evident. 'But you can just-- Blow off steam. Whatever. You only get one shot at life so do or die, I guess? Everything feels better on the other side of the finish line.'

'Poetic.' 

'You spend most of any given day in a _hospital_. You can't tell me this doesn't help a little bit.' 

Mikey huffs. 'Sure. But I don't get it. Like Gee has this whole quarter mile at a time, keep-chasing-the-horizon thing, like. It's…' His nose scrunches up while he searches for a word and it lends him a sudden, sweet affect. 'I don't know. I don't think about cars that way.'

'You just drive them to the grocery store,' Pete teases. 

'Among other things, yeah.'

That slightly smug, almost-smile of his is starting to throw Pete off balance faster than it has any right to. It takes no small amount of effort to shrug it off, smirk back, and say: 

'Sure, Mikeyway, but you keep coming back for more.'

'I guess I do.' He's still almost-smiling.

'So you think you can do it this time?'

'Drive a car up a fucking wall? No, dude. I'm not Batman.'

'Your loss.'

Mikey looks at him like he's about to ask a question, but decides against it. He throws the car into drive. 'You gotta copilot us home. I think Hurley might get mad if I get us lost in his baby.'

'He'll definitely get mad if he hears you call a Bluebird his _baby_.'

Mikey snorts. 'Whatever.'

With Mikey at the helm, they, the Bluebird and everyone else on the road make it back to their respective homes in one complete and very safe piece. Pete's already halfway out the door when Mikey says _hey, Pete?_

'Yeah?'

'I … Why don't you do it anymore?'

Something lurches in Pete's chest; an old, familiar hurt.

'Do what?'

Mikey licks his bottom lip. 'Drive.'

'Can't start the race and compete in it. Vicky-T needs me up front.' This time, he knows he's forcing his grin. There's probably a longer argument he could run with. He could probably come up with something about being a performer. He could lie. But he'd have to look Mikey in the eye to do it convincingly.

Instead he takes the stairs out of the garage two at a time, away from temptation. 

***

Mikey stares morosely down at his soda while, around him, fun things happen to other people. 

He likes the parties after the races, he really does -- or he thought he did. Somehow they've become a lot harder to tolerate without Gerard close by, so he's skipped out the last few. But Frank and Ray, in some effort to keep him … afloat? Sane? He doesn't know. They dragged him out tonight because _you can't just live in a hospital and occasionally take driving lessons from Pete Wentz_.

He thinks they might be wrong. There are so many things to do at a party that could definitely distract him, but he doesn't do them anymore. So mostly it just feels like feeling shitty, but in public.

Somewhere drifting over the slew of bodies in this open … courtyard? Old parking lot? Garden, for want of a better term maybe, and seeing as there's one sad, straggly orange tree in a pot in one corner? … comes the blanketing thud of bass, a drug of its own in some ways, and Mikey drifts towards it, drawn to the concentration of people that are turning a broken up patch of concrete into a dancefloor. 

Warm bodies and loud music are the only vices Mikey's got left. If he can't live in a hospital, if he's got to do something that isn't that, and isn't the inexplicable hours he spends in a car he kind of hates with Pete, who … doesn't really make much sense as a person, sometimes, (but whose sincere glee over something as fucking dumb as _driving_ makes Mikey forget that he kind of hates that stupid car) he can at least find someone who wants to forget about having any personal space. 

In the press of the crowd, someone cuts in behind him. He expects a hand on his arm or someone bumping against his hip, a grind to start up, and honestly, he's kind of like 'finally' -- but instead he just gets a tap on the shoulder. Turn. In the low but garish light off the DJ's makeshift dais, a guy he doesn't know looks at him.

'Wanna take a walk?'

He's hard to hear over the bass rumble, but when the question lands, Mikey just frowns. 'Not really.' He's looking for a mistake to make, not a conversation. 

But suddenly: the guy's hand at the back of his neck, holding on just a little too tight. 'I think you do.'

For a split second, he thinks he's imagining it; the flash of sleek black, tucked into the guy's belt, mostly hidden by his shirt. His stomach lurches. The guy gives him just a little squeeze. 

'C'mon. We won't be long.'

Mikey's numb in his hands. Guns look different at this vantage point, barrels hidden. 

The whipcrack sound of a muzzle blast, too close. Gerard fell so fast; he remembers that better than anything. He lets the guy lead him out of the throng, in the direction of the warehouse demarcating one side of the party's perimeter, where a bunch of already-raced cars gleam in the dim light. His stomach bottoms out again and the hand falls away from his neck.

'Mikey Way.'

A different voice this time -- a different person, when Mikey turns to look. A slim guy with big eyes and a too-sharp smile. He recognizes the face, but only in that dim way where he thinks he's seen the guy revving a car on the starting line, or moving through a different party, smirking. So like everyone else on the scene, really. 

_Leto_ , he thinks, or something like that.

Either way, he knows who _Mikey_ is, and a cold feeling prickles down the back of Mikey's neck because there's nowhere to go, not between two bodies and the warehouse wall at his back. 

'Nice to see you out and about again. I've been trying to catch up with you for a while.' Leto steps in, closing what little space they had between them to begin with and Mikey can't take a proper breath. 

'What the fuck…' he tries, but anything else he meant to say (and he has no idea what he meant to say) dies in his throat. 

'What the fuck pretty much sums it up,' Leto says, soft and smirking. 'Once upon a time, two little lost boys fucked up _my_ operation because someone thought they could pull one over on a handoff and come out clean.' He leers. 'No pun intended. What the fuck were they thinking, you gotta wonder. And who'd have thought those little lost boys would end up in my lap again, a couple of cities over? What the fuck are the chances?'

Mikey flinches back -- or, as far back as he can manage. The wall presses hard at his shoulder blades. Leto braces one arm over Mikey's shoulder. The _whole world_ feels like it's going to shiver into a bunch of sharp-edged shards. 

'Look,' Leto carries on. 'I'm not going to fuck around: I don't like having to clean up messes that other people make. And you and your brother keep making some pretty big fucking messes.'

All Mikey can hear is a high, tight-twisting sound. He stares at Leto, something clicking in his brain because he's trying to fit this into a story that makes sense. Because it's impossible. Impossible that _this guy_ is somehow at the helm of everything he's been running from. Because they were safe here, there's no way that shadow followed them this far, there's no way they walked back into it, not knowing and not thinking to find out--

Leto leans in that much closer, like they're fucking flirting, because why wouldn't he. It's a party, it's nothing fifty other people aren't doing. No one would look twice. No one can see their faces, the both of them obscured by Leto's arm.

'So,' he carries on. 'Here's what we're going to do. _You_ fix what I tell you to fix, and we don't have anything to worry about.' He smirks. 'Sound good?'

Mikey just stares, white-noise fuzz filling his throat. 

It must seem like he needs persuading, like he's being quiet on purpose, to be difficult, because Leto smiles like saccharine. Says: 'Really all I need are things delivered. You can be a delivery boy for me, can't you? Sweetheart?'

Mikey manages a jerky, stilted nod and Leto pats his cheek.

'I thought so.' And just like that, he's not quite so close anymore. 'I hope you'll keep this between us.' This time he doesn't wait for Mikey to do anything, doesn't wait for an answer. He just rolls his shoulders a little. 'Enjoy the rest of your night.'

He steps away, vanishing, with his goon, into the crowd.

***

Mikey doesn't really have anything to throw up -- just soda and bile, the both of them burning on their way up -- but out, away from the crowd, he gets as far as a shit-smelling dumpster before he doubles over, puking. And when there's nothing left, no soda, no bile, nothing, he can't stop heaving.

'Hey -- you okay?'

For the second time in the last two and a half weeks, he startles so hard he almost bangs his shoulder on the dumpster. It's Saporta, he can tell that much when he looks up, his vision blurry.

'Mikey.'

He swallows against the sour taste and straightens up, slowly. Maybe if he looks steady, he can preserve what's left of his dignity. But then Saporta edges a little closer, looks him over; hesitates. Behind him, the music billows up into the night, muted at this distance.

'Do you need to go somewhere quiet?'

There's too much space between them for Mikey to really grab at him, but he does it anyway, lurching enough that he almost steps in his own puke and Gabe has to meet him halfway, hands at his elbows. And Gabe is very warm, at least; his hands, steadying. Mikey curls into him, wanting something without even thinking about it.

'Can we just go back?'

Gabe looks at him for a minute and Mikey's stomach sinks with the fear that he's going to say no, that he's going to try to walk them off somewhere without noise or anyone to touch or anything to edge out the horrible, humming feeling in Mikey's joints. But then he gets one arm around Mikey's waist.

'Sure.'

The whole walk back, Gabe doesn't let him go, and that's all Mikey wants -- the anchor of someone else's body heat, something to _do_ , because he can't do anything else. They're back in the throng, again, pressed into music and other people, and Gabe's hand goes a little loose at his waist. Mikey twists around to grab at him.

'Dance with me,' he shouts over the music, not really waiting for an answer. 

Gabe doesn't protest, doesn't try to turn away, not even when Mikey presses as close as he can get, hips and torsos flush. And even if he doesn't really grab at Mikey the way Mikey wants -- well. He can work that out later. He ducks his head to Saporta's neck, dodging a soft lick to sweat-salted skin. He feels more than he hears Gabe's faint laugh.

'Easy there, cowboy.' He rests his hand against Mikey's hair. 

Mikey would roll his eyes if he felt like pulling away long enough for Gabe to see. As it stands, he grinds hard against him, just to make a point.

'Shut up.'

This time, Gabe doesn't say anything, and Mikey holds tight to his hips with one hand and pulls his head down with the other, kisses him hard on the mouth. He hopes everyone fucking sees.

All told, he doesn't entirely catalogue the transition from dancing to Saporta's car. He doesn't care, either. 

Gabe keeps the windows down, pulling off into the night, and Mikey wants to reach over the shifter to keep one hand on his knee, but he knows he can't. He makes up for it when they get back to Gabe's bungalow, staggering to keep him within kissing-reach while they stumble through the door. 

Inside, Gabe shoves him down on the couch and something in Mikey's stomach thrills a little, expecting a follow up that never comes. 

'I'm making tea,' Gabe announces.

Mikey blinks. 'What--'

'Wait here.'

Mikey lurches to his feet, but Gabe shoves him down again, and holds his arms this time -- not forceful, but firm. 

'Just wait.'

'I don't--'

'Didn't anyone ever teach you manners, kiddo? Let me be a good host, at least.'

_I don't give a fuck about your hospitality_ , is what Mikey wants to say, but Gabe's already gone, walking neatly for the kitchen. Mikey feels like his heart is going to work its way up his throat and out of his mouth. He sits on his hands instead.

By the time Gabe reappears, Mikey has managed to count all the weird pieces of furniture in the room, including: an ugly coffee table that looks like it might actually just be a giant stained and finished tree stump; an honest-to-god velvet velour armchair, red and overstuffed; four hanging paper lanterns; one weird tapestry repro -- black and white, an eyeball hot air balloon; and finally, the soft couch. Gabe sets the mug of tea on his would-be table. 

Mikey grabs for his wrist, and this time Gabe doesn't try to pull away, lets Mikey pull him close, into a rough kiss. It feels good -- or it feels better than anything else, right at this moment -- the sting of Gabe's teeth clipping Mikey's bottom lip. Mikey leans in, seeking something else on instinct; heat, friction, the shape of _someone else_. Their legs are all tangled when he feels for Gabe's fly and Gabe catches his hands. 

'What the hell--' he pulls away enough to see Gabe's face.

'What kind of girl do you think I am, Mikey Way?'

'I didn't think about it at all, actually.'

He reaches again and, for the second time in under an hour, Gabe catches him. 

'Not tonight, kiddo.'

'Fuck off.' 

Gabe's hands wrap around his, holding on. 'Gotta think of my reputation.'

'Your reputation for _not_ fucking around?'

'My reputation for having a conscience.' 

A red, angry, vindictive feeling stings in Mikey's gut. 'I don't think you have that reputation.'

Gabe lets go of his hands just enough. 'Well. Let's try it on for size tonight.'

Mikey wants to fight, wants to push on something just to feel it push back in lieu of giving in -- but Gabe kisses him instead. 

'You can tell everyone whatever you want to tell them tomorrow, okay? But it stops here.' 

It's not enough, not really -- but it's too late to walk out and find something else. Or it isn't too late, but Mikey's too tired, all of a sudden. He leans in and takes what he can get.

***

Pete wakes up on Andy's futon with a spectacular headache, a fuzzy mouth, and an incomplete recollection of how exactly he got from the party back to the loft.

He remembers some things. Like getting there early enough that he got roped into setting up the speakers for the DJ. Like losing Andy very early on in a suspicious manner that in anyone else Pete would attribute to them homing in on and successfully negotiating a hookup for the night, but it's Andy, so Pete attempts not to speculate lest he actually inadvertently ask a question one day and get strung up outside the garage by his thumbs for prying. 

He remembers that he wasn't looking for Mikey and yet he kept seeing him, out of the corner of his eye or just a bit of him on the dancefloor, or, once, talking really close with someone up against the warehouse wall -- the other person's body all in shadow but very close to Mikey, their face hidden almost in the curve of Mikey's neck, and Mikey's posture taut and beautiful. 

He remembers forcing himself to look away. 

He remembers looking for Saporta instead, thinking maybe he could get a bit of that going on, something easy and distracting. They've banged before, they'll bang again, like stars colliding - messy and hot and as meaningless as only the void of space can be. It's not a thing, it's a convenience, for when they don't have anything or anyone better to do at any given moment. 

Except Saporta had Mikey Way attached to him like a remora fish by that point. Pretty, pretty Mikey Way, his hair already a mess and his jeans slung low around his hips and Pete wasn't supposed to think any of the things he was thinking, but it's hard not to think about pink elephants when there's one right in front of you and you're four drinks down a bottle of Coruba. 

Maybe it's a good thing Saporta got in first. Tactical. Because that meant Pete couldn't make a very stupid mistake. But it left Pete watching, because of course he was watching. He has fucking eyes, and Gabe is hot and him and Mikey were … very hot together, and Pete was very tipsy. So he watched them dance. Or. Well. They were both still standing and they had their pants on, so 'dance' had to be the appropriate verb, right?

Pete's head aches harder at the memory. 

'This is pathetic, Pete, seriously,' said Andy, looming behind him. Pete remembers that he carefully said nothing about where Andy had been, who he'd been with, or whether or not it's gentlemanly to wrap up your hookup and come straight back out again. He's pretty sure Andy would have just said it was efficient. 

'You're watching too,' Pete pointed out. 

'No, I'm watching you,' Andy corrected him. 

Pete leant back against him, because he could and because Andy's marginally more comfortable than a brick wall, even if he is quite like one in other ways. 'Dude,' he said reproachfully. 

'Not like that, pervert. Keep it in your pants.'

Pete pouted. He remembers, because it was such an unfair thing to say. He had fully intended to keep it in his pants, he had had a great plan about how adult and sensible he was going to be and about how his pants were going to remain on at all times at this party, but he hadn't planned on Saporta dry-humping Mikey Way in front of him and God and about eighty five of their closest friends and enemies. 

Although, speaking of, Toro and Iero were definitely glaring from the other side of the party, and Pete should have felt sorry for Gabe over the talking-to that was definitely in his future, but he really didn't. If he could have brought himself to, he'd've glared too - but he felt light and overwarm all at once, full of some kind of emotion that wasn't, somehow, anger, and didn't feel sour like jealousy, either. 

Plus, also, when Pete gets drunk, making out seems like a great idea, the best idea even, so he couldn't exactly blame Gabe for what he was doing. 

It was just a bummer that no one was making out with Pete, that's all. The person he usually would have unwisely made out with, and the person he actually kind of guiltily wanted to make out with were making out with each other. And he couldn't even be entirely mad about it, because they were both too fucking pretty and the floorshow was kind of spectacular. 

Pete was very confused in his pants, he remembers that distinctly. But the pants stayed on. He looks down at himself and yep, pants still firmly in place. 

Oh, right, that's how he made it home -- he remembers now, sitting up in bed and blinking at the memories. Andy. Pulling at his arm. 

'Seriously, Wentz, you need a break.'

Pete tried to pull back so that he didn't move, and only really succeeded in half overbalancing himself. Andy steadied him. 'Ugh, Hurley, fucking _look_ at them.'

'I'm pretty sure everyone's looking at them. I'm pretty sure that's what they want.'

'I hate it,' said Pete, pouting, but he didn't mean it. And it made no fucking sense. 'I hate them, Andy.'

Andy didn't even dignify that with a response, just tugged until Pete started walking because it was that or faceplant the concrete. 'Pete, you need to sleep it off.'

'Sleep's the last thing I need,' Pete grumbled. 'How'm I supposed to sleep after seeing that fucking … live action porno out there?' 

Andy sighed. 'I have earplugs. I will wear them tonight. This offer doesn't extend to tomorrow night and you will wash the goddamn sheets on the spare bed tomorrow.'

'I sleep on the couch now.'

'Then you'll wash those sheets.'

'I'm not jerking off on the couch, dude,' Pete said, like he hadn't already done it about a million times. 'I just. It sucks. Being alone. Sleeping on the couch. You don't get it.'

Andy sighed again, gustily. 'I've seen you in love before, Pete,' he said, as if that was any kind of logical response to Pete's actual complaints, and hey, what the fuck? 

''M not _in love_. I'm just. I'm horny, I guess. And fucking -- fucking drunk, okay? Not that it matters. No one will ever love me.'

He made sure to say that last bit as melodramatically and morosely as possible, entirely angling for the response he got when they finally reached the garage, which was: Andy scruffing his hair. 

Pete kind of wishes he didn't remember being that fucking tragic. 

'I love you, you pathetic teenage girl,' Andy had said in response, though, because he's the best friend, and pushed Pete through the door, and up the stairs and all the way onto the couch, folding up onto it with him. 

Pete doesn't remember Andy getting up, so he must have done it when Pete was asleep. He also doesn't remember having had a blanket when he fell asleep, but he has one now, so Andy must have done that too. 

There's a smell of food from downstairs. Pete manages to get up without tripping over the prone bodies of Toro and Iero, who are sprawled mostly on the camping mattresses they're supposed to be sprawled on. Iero is totally silent, but Pete assumes a dead body wouldn't naturally stay in that contortionist's pose, so he's probably fine. Toro's starfished in every possible direction and isn't quite snoring, but he's getting there. He's also probably fine.

There's a plate already waiting for Pete when he makes it to the kitchen. Andy's kind of the best. Even if his hangover breakfasts involve ancient grains and no bacon. Vegan straightedge guys don't exactly do hangover breakfasts with any kind of … expertise. It's Andy's one major failing as far as Pete is concerned. 

He's picking at the bits that aren't obviously full of chlorophyll when Mikey, silent as the grave, slips through the front door. 

'Welcome back,' Andy says, casual as anything, at exactly the moment that Pete smells coffee.

Jealous, he glances at the tall cup in Mikey's hands, then looks up at Mikey proper, where he stands, bleary-eyed and sluggish-looking in the kitchen door. Bleary-eyed, sluggish-looking, and sporting a stunning hickey. Pete wants to fistbump him, fistbump Gabe, and put his head down on the counter and die because he's somehow irrationally jealous and maybe less-irrationally turned on. And his head still hurts. 

'Breakfast?' Mikey croaks. 

Andy doesn't miss a beat, pointing to the free stool beside Pete while he fixes a second plate. This close, Pete has a full view of Mikey's fucking smeared eyeliner, and the hickeys (and it's more than just the one, oh my god), and the way his fingers wrap, long and bony and elegant, around his coffee cup and--

Jesus fuck, he doesn't have the energy for this. Not when Andy won't give _him_ hangover coffee.

'I'm going back to bed,' he announces, just as Andy passes a plate of kale-and-tempeh-whatever-the-fuck to Mikey.

He reaches over and takes Mikey's coffee.

'Hey,' Mikey protests. 

But his voice is soft and sleepy; he doesn't try to chase after Pete when he goes back upstairs. Pete hopes that Gabe appreciates whatever kind of fucking around him and Mikey got up to. He also hopes Gabe appreciates how pretty Mikey is, just, like, in a general sense. 

He downs three mouthfuls of coffee in one go and burns the back of his tongue. Still, it tastes better than anything Andy tried to feed him. He sets the cup down by Andy's bed for later and worms his way under the blankets. Maybe the sunshine won't sting so bright in his eyes when he wakes up again.

***

Now Mikey has no coffee. He blinks at his plate, then looks up and follows Pete as he wends his way, a little haltingly, towards the kitchen door, and then out, to where Mikey can only hear the stairs and then the ceiling creak, ostensibly to curl up in the small corner that's actually the formal one bedroom of this one bedroom … place. 

Mikey rests his head on the benchtop next to the plate of food Andy gave him, and tries hard to marshal his … thoughts? Energy? Something. Anything, really. He should be being a better guest to match how fucking awesome a host Andy's being. 

There's a clunk, and he looks up again to find a steaming mug of tea in front of him as well, and thinks of the mug of tea at Gabe's place he didn't drink because he was otherwise occupied, and sighs. He wonders what it says about him that he's still mad at Saporta for refusing to fuck him.

'Drink,' Andy orders. 'And then go lie down. Or shower and lie down, if you feel up to it.' 

He doesn't have the energy to argue, so he takes the mug, blows the steam off in a thin veil, and sips. For all that he _isn't_ hung over, he's grateful for Andy's silence, because he doesn't think he could possibly pull it together enough to explain himself, or where he was, or what he was or wasn't doing with Saporta. Not like it should make a difference; he's an adult, and even if Andy had any stake at all in his wellbeing, it's still not his business who Mikey fucks with when, or where, or how. But--

He takes another too-hot swallow, winces, and scrubs at his eyes. Upstairs somewhere, Pete's probably burrowing into a pile of bedding. A fleeting thought skirts the edges of his mind -- warm blankets and a second warm body in under 24 hours. Somewhere else to feel … something.

He grits his teeth, suddenly jealous of Pete's hangover. 

'Thanks for the tea,' he mumbles, sliding off his stool.

The mug's still half-full -- but then, so is his plate. Andy doesn't comment on either. Mikey makes his way to the spare bed and throws himself down, willing sleep to come to him. He has to visit Gerard in a few hours, and there's only so much lying he can do on so little sleep.

With his face hidden in his pillow, he can only hear Frank and Ray getting up and going down to the kitchen to talk with Andy.

***

For a few days, Mikey can almost forget that the whole getting-cornered-and-extorted thing happened at all. It's loud in Andy's loft when everyone's awake in the mornings, that helps, and at night it's all snoring and tripping over each other and Mikey can drift away on that, too. It's harder during the day when the others have … jobs, or whatever, but he goes to see Gerard, who's doing good now, or better, anyway, and can move his fucked up arm a little bit. He can give Mikey awkward side-hugs, and does. 

'I miss you,' Mikey says a lot. Gerard squeezes him as much as he's capable of doing. 

'I'm out soon,' he says, but he says that a lot too. 

He's only been in for less than a fortnight. Mikey misses him but he doesn't want them to rush, he doesn't want Gerard to hurt more because they didn't take care of him properly. 

He also doesn't want to think about where they're going to stay, once Gerard is out of hospital, because it's pretty obvious that the situation at Andy's place is not ideal, just logistically. He sits around the hospital room and brings Gerard old comic books that they read out loud to each other. 

When the weekend rolls around again, the others literally drag him out to the Friday night race, this time because apparently it's unhealthy for him to 'sit alone in the dark' all night. He can't even beg off to the hospital again because Gerard keeps insisting that he has to go breathe fresh air once in a while. Also, frustratingly, 'visiting hours' are a thing.

So here he is, looking out over the twilight shadows, observing how they lengthen over shiny chrome and lipgloss-bright paintjobs and listening to the roar of engines counterpoint to distance-fuzzed, incomprehensible bass. And his heart? Is fucking pounding, and not in the good way.

He doesn't physically take Frank's hand but he comes fucking close, and feels bad for feeling thankful that Frank's current knee condition and the death threats from his physio mean that he can't do much on a race night except prop up a wall, drink whatever people occasionally bring him to drink, and people-watch while dishing out gleeful, sardonic commentary that only Mikey can hear. Mikey tries to pay attention to only that. To laugh.

And he angles himself so that Frank's body is blocking the actual party from his peripheral vision, and tilts his head back against the way to watch the sky. The shitty LA smog and the glare of all the light means he can't see the stars, but that's calming in its own way -- a blanket in the sky and someone's body heat next to him. A small space, even if it's not a real space, that he can exist in and nothing can get in to get at him. 

Except then Frank needs a piss. 'And don't fucking offer to give me a hand,' he says, which, what? 'I can't drive or dance but I don't need anyone to come and hold the fucking thing for me while I take a leak.'

It's just possible that Frank is going a little stir-crazy too. Mikey rolls his eyes. 'Whatever, man, I wasn't gonna offer. I didn't realise you and Toro had that kind of relationship.'

Frank punches Mikey in the shoulder. Mikey waves him away, but then he's alone, without anything between him and the rest of the party. He tips his head back up to the sky again and forces his breathing to conform to a slow count, but all that means is that he's not looking when someone slides into Frank's space, and it's not Frank. Mikey startles, but a hand already has him by the wrist.

Too tight. 

He looks up and Leto smirks, and it's almost enough to make Mikey yank away. But he can't -- what can he do? He and Frank were deliberately out of earshot and mostly out of sight of the real crowd. God knows where any of the others are -- Hurley disappears like a ghost at these things, Pete mingles like it's his job, and Ray normally either hangs with Frank or doesn't come at all, and it was the latter tonight. 

Leto pulls Mikey's hand to his hip and into his pocket. 

'Take it.' 

There's a phone in there and Mikey curls his numb fingers around it and tries not to think about exactly how gross and grandstand-y this is. There are a hundred ways to threaten someone without being skeezy about it. 

He knows how it must look. He wishes he could believe that no one would buy him hooking up with Leto, but he's been sober long enough to have a sense of what he must seem like to any fleeting passersby.

He gets the phone and pulls away, as far as he can get -- it mostly leaves him plastered against the wall. Leto doesn't let go of his wrist.

'I shouldn't have to tell you to make sure you pick up, but with your track record? Make sure you pick up,' he says. 'And … don't do anything stupid.'

He pats Mikey's cheek again, like last time, and then he's gone. 

Mikey shoves the phone in his pocket and waits for Frank to get back; waits for the inevitable 'what was that creep doing?' that'll give him the opening to say something, because he's a shit liar when someone asks him a direct question. 

But Frank's knee makes him slow. He does come back, but not in time to have seen Leto with Mikey. Mikey offers him a thin smile and the din of the crowd washes over them, insubstantial at this distance.

'Hey, you okay?' Frank asks, after a few minutes. 'You cold? We can go back if you want.'

Mikey startles. He'd been curling in on himself - not much, just. He really is cold, even if it has nothing to do with the temperature. He straightens up. 'I'm good,' he says.

Frank squints at him. 'You were fine before I left,' he says, and Mikey desperately wants him to guess something's actually up, and desperately wants him to stop talking, all at once. It's almost a relief when he puts his hand to Mikey's forehead. 'You feeling alright?'

'I'm fine,' says Mikey, swatting him away. 'Mom.'

'Well, I wanna go home.' Frank drains the last of his beer in one go. 'Leg hurts, and these parties are lame without Toro. C'mon.'

It's transparent as glass, and Mikey's grateful. His heart doesn't stop pounding til they get back to the loft, but at least he doesn't let it show.

***

The burner phone goes off the first time two days later, while Mikey's reading a comic in the spare bed and trying to stay out of Ray's way. Not like it matters. Ray mills around him and reaches over him when he needs to. He's cleaning the loft while Andy's out, because he's a good person or something. 

Mikey almost jumps out of his skin at the phone's single _bzzt_. It's a text, thank fuck - he doesn't know what he'd do if he had to explain who was calling him at three in the afternoon when everyone who has his actual phone number is within bitching distance. 

He looks at Ray, sees his back while he fucking vacuums one of Andy's goddamn actual windowsills. Flip the phone open. Just a time listed in the message box - 01:30, definitely am, and a street address. _Pickup_ , it says. The phone hums again and Mikey almost drops it.

_Dropoff_ and the name of a parking building not far from here. 

He stuffs the phone back in his pocket just as Ray comes past with the vacuum cleaner and gives him a reproachful look. 

'You could help!' he mouths over the roar of the thing. 

Mikey thinks of all the breakfasts Andy's cooked him and all the shirts that, when he and Gerard were living at Ray and Frank's, found their way mysteriously into Ray's laundry only to be given back to Mikey, clean and folded, and considers getting up to go do the dishes. But his stomach crawls over itself, so he just flips Ray the bird.

He does eventually shuffle to the sink to handle whatever dishes Andy needs washed, it just takes him a few moments to settle his jangling nerves enough to actually force himself to get up and off the safe oasis of the futon.

Andy and Frank return, eventually, with the groceries. Pete actually makes it home before them, carting the engine parts Andy'd sent him to retrieve from the supplier. Mikey fidgets his way through dinner, and then through a movie, and then through everyone slowly going to bed, or mattress, or couch. 

'Mikes?' Ray says after the lights are out. His mattress is closest to the futon. 'Is everything okay?'

No. 'Yeah,' says Mikey softly. 'Just bored.'

'I feel you,' Ray sighs. He fidgets a while longer, and then says tentatively, 'Any word on Gerard coming home?'

Mikey rolls over so he's closer to the edge of the futon, and peers down at Ray, who's looking up at him all soft and tired. 'He's doing good,' he says. But. 'But ... I dunno.'

Ray exhales and it sounds very heavy. It fills up the dark.

'It'd be nice if we could all go home,' he says, and it's barely a whisper. 

Mikey knows how he feels. 'I want Gerard to get better,' he volunteers, because it's the same thing. 

'Yeah. Me too.'

More quiet.

Ray's breathing has slowed. He's sleeping, thank god, by the time Mikey's phone glares 1 am at him. He didn't bother getting undressed, and his keys have been digging a hole in his hip since he laid down, but it means he can ninja his way out of the loft and out to the street without making any more of a ruckus than absolutely necessary.

His actual car, _his_ car, not the Bluebird, is parked a few spaces down from the garage. Theoretically maybe he should have been worried about parking it on the street, but it's a piece of crap and this is a pretty safe area. 

It coughs as it starts, but it does start, thank fuck. 

Mikey arrives at the pickup address minutes early, which is … not great, but better than being late. He twists the ignition off and waits. At 1:30, someone walks past and leans down to the driver's side window. 

'Got a light?' he asks. 

Mikey shrugs and fumbles one of Gerard's lighters out of the glove compartment, passes it over.

'Thanks, man,' says the stranger. When he passes the lighter back, he also hands over a package. 

Mikey stashes it under the seat. 'No problem.' 

Part of him, the stupid part of him, is dying to know what's in it. The rest of him knows what will happen if it looks like he so much as touched the thing, let alone tried to open it. He starts the car again, and pulls out into the night.

The dropoff isn't far, but the drive feels interminable. 

A lot by an old, dystopian looking strip mall. It doesn't take Mikey even half a lap of the parking lot to find what he supposes he should be looking for. A shitty car, scratched all down one side. He pulls up, and a window slides down, and in the gloom: a pair of eyes he recognises. If he didn't already feel sick, he'd be surprised. He's done this sort of thing before - never once has the actual _druglord_ shown up.

Leto just crooks one finger at him, and Mikey thinks of vampires, beckoning in the dark. 

He roots around under the seat until he has a hold on the package. It's heavy -- dense. The number of things it could potentially be narrows down in the thirty seconds it takes Mikey to grab it and basically stuff it through the car window to its new handler. He wishes his ignorance had remained broader. He wishes he hadn't recognised the pick-up guy. 

He wishes his car had a quieter engine, when he parks it back in the only free spot on Andy's street and slinks back into the loft, because there's no way in hell no one noticed either him leaving, him being gone, or him coming back. 

Still. He risks it once, twice, three more times. Never the same pickup point, never the same dropoff lot. He doesn't see Leto again after that first night (and he wonders why that is; if the first time was just a test. His skin crawls at the thought).

But every night that he slinks back into the loft, no one says anything. Which is good. If no one asks, he can't tell.

***

He pesters Pete for more joyrides, even when Pete and Ray both remark on how tired he always looks.

_I just want Gerard to come home._

And he does, so it's not really a lie. Pete takes him for the joyrides, but usually makes him stop for coffee first, and of course, shitty cookies. Mikey clings to these things -- the coffee, Pete's gentle teasing, the fucking _car_ \-- like they're the last port in a storm. He wishes the caffeine and sugar would spike him enough to make him at least _try_ to pull one of the stupid, driving-too-fast stunts that Pete's always haranguing him about.

'Just show me,' Mikey finally says, throwing the car into park. 'I'm never gonna get it like this, and if it's so goddamn important to you that I feel the need for speed or whatever, _show_ me.'

He's itching all in his veins and he realises he probably sounds a little bit pissed, but he's not. He just … he itches. So he turns the engine off and yanks the keys and tosses them in Pete's lap, and the way Pete looks at him itches too. 

The empty lot, like all the empty lots they go to, is bright and dusty and it feels like they're a million miles away from everything. A world wide open. Pete curls his fingers around the keys like he's testing them for their weight or something - or maybe he's just reaching for a sense memory. Mikey doesn't know, and couldn't say, not while he's noticing the way Pete's tattoos furl over his wristbones and-- 

God. 

He hasn't gotten laid since before Gerard went to hospital. And … he could have? He could absolutely fuck off with someone, it's not like it's hard for him to go fishing for dick, but … the idea of the burner phone going off in the middle of a messy hookup makes his blood turn to water. 

So here he is, in broad fucking daylight, running on three hours of sleep and meditating on stupid shit like the sunshine, and the color of Pete's tattoos, and the faint shadow of his smile, and the almost-nothing space between them in the car. And he wants Pete to floor it, or whatever. Gun the engine, run them into a wall, chase the sunshine. _Whatever._

Whatever. 

He can find a hookup later.

Pete glances at him.

'C'mon,' Mikey urges, and before Pete can argue, he steps out of the car, leaving the driver's seat wide open. 

There's one beat of quiet, in which he watches Pete looking at the keys in the late-lancing sunlight. Then he levers himself up and lifts his ass over the shifter so he can slide into the bucket seat without having to get out of the car. Mikey goes for the other door, settling into the passenger seat with something thrilling in his chest.

Pete clicks the key into the ignition. When he looks back at Mikey there's a reckless burning in his eyes. 

'You want me to get in trouble, Mikeyway?' He's not very good at pretending not to be excited.

Mikey schools his expression into something flat, and deadpans, 'Yeah, I kinda do.'

Pete's smile is infectious, a little bit dangerous, and he starts the engine and the damn thing even sounds different when he's behind the wheel, because he feathers the throttle and cuts his eyes at Mikey as he does it, and only takes off when the pitch of the engine note has reached some mystical point that Mikey's been listening for, he swears, every time they've gone driving but he could never pinpoint himself. 

And when he reaches a corner somehow the car just … makes the turn, smooth and graceful, and Pete's downshifts are tight, short-lived, and then he's back up again and it's like he's not even thinking about any of the steps in between the actions, he turns the wheel one handed and keeps the other on the shifter as much as possible and it's so graceful. He knows what the car can do and he knows the course and there's no one else here, he knows where the edges are, he can take this thing right out to them. 

Mikey pretends he's looking out the window so that he doesn't just stare. 

It's pretty obvious that Pete takes corners too sharp on purpose, accelerates just because there's no reason not to -- and it should probably feel as dangerous as his smile does. It would feel dangerous if Mikey was doing it, he knows it would, which is why he doesn't do it, but … Pete's excited, he's exhilarated, he's so goddamn beautiful. 

Why the fuck, the actual fuck, does Pete not race anymore? Pete's sidestepped the question enough times now that Mikey knows he's never going to get an answer.

They hit a long, straight stretch of tarmac, and Pete's foot is flat to the floor, and the speed climbs and climbs, past what Mikey's ever taken it to, past numbers that seem at all reasonable, and the world whips past the windows in a screaming smear. He rakes his fingers into the cushion of the seat, and can't bring himself to let go. 

His knuckles are literally white, and his heart kicks wild in his chest -- but it's not the aching stabbing of anxiety, it's more like when a DJ's playing something that ratchets you up, and up, and up, and you know there's going to be a drop but you don't know when yet, you just have to wait for it. 

He's going to _die_ either in a car wreck or because his heart can't keep up with this - and then the engine note falls again, the world outside unfuzzes, the pressure in Mikey's ribcage flattens out and he becomes aware that he's laughing, and he doesn't know how to stop. Fuck, if Pete doesn't --

But Pete just laughs with him. 'Get it now?'

No. No, not in a million fucking years, but being in the car with Pete while _Pete_ feels the car thing? Yeah. Fuck yeah. Mikey's heartrate winds down and Pete basically _vibrates_. 

When he's happy it's like fucking sunshine, and this is hands down the happiest Mikey's ever seen him. It's actually kind of unreal. 

Mikey wants to see it again.

'I dunno,' he says when he manages to pull himself together and marshall the chill to be snarky. 'I might have to give it a few more tries.'

Pete's eyes say, fuck yeah, let's go, but Pete's mouth says 'Sorry, Mikeyway. Only the first ride's free,' sly and coy and pitch-matched to Mikey so perfectly, bait for bait. 

Mikey smacks him in the shoulder, but doesn't protest when he gets out so they can swap seats again. And the drive back, with Pete smirking at him every time he rides the brake, almost feels fun, too.

***

'Alright!'

Pete throws his hands up in the air like he's about to play a stadium show -- and everyone quiets down for him. 

Over to one side, Vicky gives him her usual cool, business-like nod, and the four cars on the start line are revving gently. All eyes on Pete. Just how Pete likes it. 

He doesn't even know what he's saying. But he meets the eyes of every single driver on his makeshift grid and thinks, _fuck you_. 

It's not fucking _fair_. He spins on his heel and knows it puts his ass and tattoos on display and hopes they're all fucking looking, hopes someone's gonna come after him later, hot-eyed and hungry, so he can do something good and stupid. He _misses_ driving, and not driving to the grocery store the way Mikey does. He misses the breathless high that comes from being just-this-side of out of control, and he can't have it back. 

He can't have … any of what he used to have back. His life has changed, and he accepted it, because he had to, and he got used to it and he carved out this, this loud, colourful, ricochet existence where he still gets a shadow of the thrill he used to have behind the wheel, but the hurt place in his chest never really healed over. 

And then he picked the scab off that old wound on purpose. Who knows why. A new _fuck you_ to a world that doesn't care. Rage, rage against the dying of the light or whatever.

Or maybe a pretty boy just smiled at him, and he's as stupid for pretty boys as he's ever been. 

He drops his arms and the four cars roar off past him, blasting him with the soupy, dusty warm air that's been hanging over the tarmac like a blanket, and thinks, _I could_. Spins and watches the taillights get smaller and smaller, and y'know what, he could. He absolutely could. Could beg a car off Andy to borrow, could maybe even save enough to get something of his own. Could drop his ass into a Recaro seat rather than shaking it out on the concrete, and could put his foot down and _smoke_ all these fucking pretenders. 

He could -- but he knows he won't.

In the hollows of his heart: barbed blame, rage, the kinds of words you can't take back. A door slammed a long time ago, and now it's just him, watching other people chase their thrill. 

The engine notes dim to nothing, lost around two corners. They'll be back soon, but for now Pete stands out alone on the dusty street and the noise of the party builds back up while they wait for the winners and the losers to come screeching back, giving them something to party _for_. 

He was, and still is, better than anyone in those cars tonight, and everyone knows it, and that's the problem.

He woke up in a hospital once. Or, more specifically, he woke up in the back of an ambulance, and a pain beyond anything he'd ever known tore through him, and he blacked out, and then woke up _again_ in a hospital. 

Cars, when they fold into each other, sound a lot like gunshots. 

So does the last _fuck you_ , and the final slamming of a door, it turns out.

He turns back to the party when he really can't hear the cars anymore, and catches the eyes of the freaking itty bitty mechanics' committee where they're ranged out against the side of Andy's pickup -- Toro raises a beer in salute at him, Iero, posture crabbed, nods. Andy's got Iero braced against him, and he nods too. 

Mikey raises an eyebrow and quirks half his mouth up in the too-cool-for-school smile he always wears at these things, and something feels a little broken-open in Pete's chest. A precious moment -- Mikey, laughing with him, smiling at him, in the cockpit of the Bluebird -- vanishes like blued mist. 

Pete feels … kind of like a complete idiot for leaning in to how good that felt. And, still, he kind of wants to remember it over and over again, press it between two thin plates of glass like a specimen, so he can keep it forever, and that makes him feel like an idiot too, so. Good news, everything comes full circle. 

Knocking it out of the park here, Wentz. 

The cars round the last bend, screaming, and blast in smears of chrome and color over the finish line, one … then two, three.

Number four bursts sound, glass, steel and concrete into the night, because the driver took the turn too fast, slewed sideways, wheels grabbing frantically but not finding the grip they needed. It's not the end for the brick wall that stopped him, but some homeowner is going to be _pissed_ at having had it damaged. 

Pete's stomach turns over when race control (Vicky, that is, with Leighton to help her, their faces grim) hauls the driver out of that mess, checking him for whiplash. He's fine, it turns out, but the sight of him--

Pete fights a sick feeling away, because they have to book it. No party tonight, kids; the cops are coming. He sees someone prop the guy up, get him out, and then everyone else moves in a mad rush, like the wildebeest stampede in The Lion King. 

Pete hurls himself into the bed of Andy's pickup with all the toolboxes and when they get back to the loft he's smeared in grease, track dirt, and sweat. He ducks into the shower before anyone can beat him to it. He can't really let go of the sight of the smashed up car, though. The shower spray is so hot it stings on his shoulders.

Anaheim. That's what Andy told him, and Pete didn't ask how he knew, or why he knew, because he didn't want to think about the answer to either.

How many times do you need to twist a knife before there's nothing left to fix?

_You don't own the scene, Wentz._ He actually hit Leto, right then and there, and fuck all if he was still hurt. He'd wreck himself ten times over just to beat Leto's head into the ground. And actually, that might be the problem.

It was never _just_ him, until it was. And you don't need to twist a knife all that much to figure that out.

He hasn't touched a car since, not to race. Anaheim. He thinks of Patrick, and he hopes Andy's right, because none of this is worth very much if he isn't.

Pete twists the shower off.

Once he's dried and dressed -- his skin still stinging -- he throws himself on the couch and tosses one of Andy's too-soft, fucking _lavender-smelling_ pillows over his head, just so he doesn't have to look at Mikey curled into the futon that used to be his bed. Skinny, and pretty, and very much not sleeping.


	3. Chapter 3

'Hey,'

Mikey scrubs his hand over his eyes and tries to pretend he's surprised that Pete's still awake. He was going to work his way around the Ray-and-Frank triphazard on the floor, and climb onto the futon. He was going to _count his fucking breaths_ in the hopes of calming the erratic way his heart races in his chest. But Pete shuffles over on the couch and Mikey's weak for … for warmth and proximity, and he's too tired to pretend at anything else.

Pete inspects him when he curls up on the other end of the couch. He's trying to be subtle about it, which is sweet. He actually _is_ pretty subtle about it, and somehow that's even sweeter. If Mikey weren't so tired, maybe he could figure out why.

But then Pete cuts his eyes at Mikey in a once-over that Mikey recognizes from years of slutting it up while being a little brother. _Assessing the state of things_ , is what Gerard would call it. 'Looking for a yes,' is probably what anyone else would call it. He takes the bag of marshmallows off Pete's lap and lets him look, if he's looking. 

Marshmallows are technically a forbidden food in the loft, and Mikey never wants to hear Andy and Frank's tag team explanation of the things that are done to cows in the name of marshmallow production ever again, but they don't crunch when you eat them, which is key. He pops two in his mouth at once and decides he doesn't care what Pete thinks of him and his late night excursions. 

He bites himself while chewing though, not deliberately -- gets a ragged, sluggishly bleeding hole on the inside of his cheek, because he's still kind of shaky. He's the worst drug mule in the history of drug mules, and he isn't even tweaking. 

'Y'okay?' Pete finally asks, after all that looking. 

He reaches across Mikey's lap for a marshmallow of his own. There's a movie playing on his laptop, and he pulls an earbud out and hands it to Mikey. Tinny sound spills out, and Mikey jams the thing in his own ear before it can wake any of the others. The reach on the cable isn't enough to maintain the distance between them, so they shuffle closer together. 

Maybe Pete can feel Mikey's heart pounding through his shoulder. He slides a look sideways, at any rate, and Mikey realises he never answered the question. 

The package was small and heavy tonight and the guy who handed it to Mikey was very keen to make sure he saw the gun in his waistband as well. He'd grabbed Mikey's wrist on the handover, too. Not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough to hurt. 

Is Mikey okay? 

Uh. 

Pete offers him the marshmallow bag again and onscreen someone frolicks in a sunlit, sparkling ocean and there's some kind of voiceover happening, and it's dark outside the halo of light on the laptop screen. Mikey could say no. I'm not okay. 

His teeth gum together around the candy, and he wants to own up, before it all crashes down around his ears. 

Pete cocks his head at Mikey, smiles softly in the computer glow, and there's worry in that smile the way there was worry in it when they sat under harsh fluorescents at the hospital waiting room. When they thought Gerard was going to die. If Mikey says something now, if he says _I'm not okay, I'm in bad shit again, I need help--_ Pete will do something about it.

And then he'll get hurt too. 

The muzzle blast. 

Mikey winces, then presses on his cheek like it's the bitten-up skin that made him flinch.

'Yeah.' He's tired, but he smiles anyway. 

Pete grins at him and it hurts. Pete's whole face changes when he smiles, does something to Mikey's insides he doesn't understand, and it makes Mikey feel sick-dizzy, thinking of him getting hurt because of Mikey. Or getting hurt at all. 

He doesn't say anything else, he just settles in to watch the rest of the movie, and when it's done he shuffles to the futon rather than do what he wants to do, which is put his head on Pete's lap. 

***

Pete slides his hand along the door sill of Saporta's Cobra, just idling, waiting for Gabe to get back from his pre-race piss, when a cold shiver slides up his neck; the unmistakeable feeling of someone watching you. 

He stiffens, but he doesn't turn around.

'Thinking of getting back on the track in more than just your short shorts, Wentz?' 

Pete … so help him. It's a fucking miracle he doesn't throw a punch as soon as he pivots to catch Leto behind him, chewing gum in a fucking stunning display of obnoxious self-importance. Even so, Leto keeps a very, very smart arm and a half's distance between them.

'Why?' Pete snaps. 'You worried?'

Leto, unfazed, cuts a little glance to Mikey, standing to one side with Ray, hand wrapped around a can of soda and hip popped just a little, just enough that his hoodie rides up over the swell of his hipbones and catches at the tiny dip of his waist, all of which are details Pete shouldn't notice and feels the blood rising in his veins at the idea that Leto's looking at that too. 

'What's that saying?' Leto asks, and his voice is all kinds of oozing. 'About insanity and making the same mistake over and over again?'

His teeth show when he grins -- it's a threat, it's a very predatory approximation of something you'd have to categorise as a smile because the corners of his mouth turn up, and then he winks at Pete, like there's a secret shared between them. 

Pete's vision practically goes red at the periphery. Leto snaps his gum.

'Maybe I'll catch you out on the tarmac.'

He swaggers away to his own car and the little pack of his pals that're lounging all over it, and god, it takes everything in Pete, every ounce of his rapidly eroding self control, to force himself to go over to Ray and Mikey and not follow that asshole instead and make a very, very bad move.

Ray reaches out and touches Pete's shoulder when he basically collides with the side of Andy's pickup, which is when Pete realises he's -- something. Shaking with rage, probably.

'What was that?' Ray asks, softly. He asks everything softly. Pete wants to bury his face in Ray's shoulder, but Ray's not Andy, for all their odd similarities. He settles for crossing his arms across his chest. 

'Nothing,' he spits. 'It was nothing. He's just an asshole.' 

Ray doesn't say anything, which is a thing Andy also sometimes does when he's waiting for Pete to finish up whatever 'nothing' means. Pete kind of hates it. 

So he glares down at his boots, and next to them, Mikey's ratty Chucks. 

It's _almost_ enough to take the edge off Pete's rage. Well, that and the fact that Mikey's leaning almost close enough to bump shoulders with Pete. It feels like affection, from race-night Mikey, anyway -- until Pete looks up at him. 

Mikey glances between him, and Ray, and Leto's court of minor criminals. His shoulder's stiff against Pete's. That's about all it takes for Pete to get angry all over again.

'You gonna be okay?' Ray asks, watchful.

Jesus. After living with him for almost a month, Pete's really starting to wonder if Ray and Andy haven't mindmelded into the same I'll-defuse-this-situation-and-then-take-care-of-you freak of nature. 

'Yeah,' Pete snaps. 'I'll be fine.'

If Ray doubts him, he doesn't argue. Mikey, for his part, hasn't moved or said a word, eyes trained on Leto's circle of human bullshit.

'You know him?' He deadpans the question, but his voice is just a little bit too soft.

'Not really. I wrecked his shit once and he's still not fucking over it.'

It's a … passable version of the truth. He knows it, and Ray knows it, and Pete remembers that Ray knows it two seconds after he says it. Ray doesn't push, though, and Mikey--

It's like Leto has a sixth fucking sense. He glances up and catches Mikey -- and, by extension, Pete -- looking and he mimes something faintly like blowing a kiss before going back to whatever he was doing. Mikey's hand, the one holding his soda, twitches just a little and Pete has to count off all the reasons why he loves Andy too much to just walk across the asphalt and probably land himself, Leto, and a few other people in the hospital.

'Where's Hurley?' Ray asks, like he can already tell how this is going to go down.

Pete kind of hates that he's so fucking obvious sometimes.

'I don't know.'

'Can you two find him? He told me he'd be back, like, twenty minutes ago.' 

The selfish part of Pete wants to ask what the hell Ray even needs Andy for, because he knows there isn't really a good reason -- the rest of him, for once, doesn't listen to the selfish part. 

'Sure.'

He shoves off the pickup with enough force to make sure Ray knows he's pissed, even if he's behaving, and Mikey follows and is generally as quiet and affectless as he always is at these things. Pete really has no idea where Andy is, so they mostly just wander around for ten minutes, unsuccessful in the mill of everyone else. 

So that's awesome. 

'Pete?' Mikey says as they circle back around to head towards the truck again. He's still talking in that weird, not-soft-but-softer-than-usual way.

Again, the bladelike edge of Pete's anger dulls just a little bit. He stops. 'Yeah?'

There's a long beat of silence in which Mikey just looks at him, his face inscrutable, and it makes Pete's heart twist over itself in a nettle. He likes being looked at, but he doesn't like being looked at _like this_ , on the edges of the crowd, with someone he can't always read. Finally, Mikey says:

'I … You're okay, right?'

It's not the question Pete was expecting, but the way Mikey asks makes Pete feel very guilty.

'I'm fine.' 

Mikey doesn't look at all convinced, but he nods, looking past Pete's shoulder.

'I think Andy's back.'

He's right. And as they approach the grill again, Andy looks up, his gaze catching Pete's, and Pete could probably be a mile away and still tell that Andy's giving him the off-grid equivalent of a psych eval. He wishes that he had it in him to be mad about it, or mad at Ray for saying shit, or mad at … anything, really, since that might make him forget about Leto for two seconds.

Andy, at least, doesn't embarrass him by saying shit. Just a casual _where were you two?_ and Pete gets to hand off the easy answer: _Just looking for you._

By the time Gabe and Frank make an appearance, Pete has ratcheted down a few notches. He'd like to believe it's enough that no one notices anything weird, but he knows it isn't true, he can feel how much it isn't true while he sets the stage for the kids racing tonight. All the usual bravado is there, and none of the general thrill he gets from loosely flirting with all the drivers before he sends them off. 

***

The late hours after midnight find him showered and huddled in a hoodie and sweatpants on the couch back in the loft, clicking through stupid youtube videos and feeling sorry for himself while trying to think up reasons why he shouldn't feel sorry for himself. Everyone else is asleep, as usual -- or he thinks they are. He didn't hear Mikey try to stealth his way out, tonight. And even if he had, he shouldn't startle when Mikey appears from the gloom to perch on the far arm of the couch.

But he does.

'Sorry,' Mikey says softly when Pete pulls out his earbuds.

'It's okay.'

'Can I sit?'

A bad, too-tight feeling in Pete's chest eases just a little bit. 'Mi casa, su casa, Mikeyway.'

Mikey huffs. 'It's not your house, jackass. It's not even your couch.'

'Technically.'

Mikey makes a face -- that fleeting, nose-wrinkling thing he does -- but he settles onto the couch cushions proper. Pete passes him his bag of sour gummi worms. 

They aren't quite touching but Pete can feel a very faint warmth coming off Mikey's bony shoulder where it almost brushes his own. It strikes him that he knows, now, in more than just a passing sense, what it feels like when Mikey leans against him, however incidentally. He knows, and because of that, he's all the more aware that it isn't happening now. 

'Was he talking shit about me?'

Mikey asks the question so quietly that Pete has to catch up to it, has to stitch some of it together for himself, and then--

Oh. 

An acrid feeling dissolves itself in his blood. Because no, Leto didn't say one word about Mikey -- but it doesn't make the honest answer any less complicated.

'It doesn't matter what he was fucking talking about. He's an asshole.'

Mikey's quiet for a while, then he knocks his shoulder into Pete's. 

'Thanks.' 

He looks at his hands while he says it, and it startles Pete enough that he forgets that he's mad for a second, because: 

'What?'

Mikey shrugs, a motion that moves all the linkages in his upper body like a suspension bridge in a gust of wind. 'Gee and I -- we were all alone when we showed up here,' he says. 'We were living in that fucking car, man. And now … Ray, Frank, Andy--' He bites his lip. 'You? You guys give a shit about us. About what people say about us.'

Pete stares. Words escape him -- or they don't, because he wouldn't have had anything to say to that in the first place. All Mikey's caution in an _actual_ car notwithstanding, there are never any middle gears with this kid. It's a proverbial zero to one hundred and back to zero, and they're sitting too close for him to make that kind of confession. 

Mikey keeps staring at his hands. Pete tastes sour gummi worms and something ferric.

He finally gets over himself enough to awkwardly clap Mikey on the shoulder. 

'Of course we care,' he manages. It's … not even close to being the total truth, but at least they aren't just sitting there in silence. 

Or he thinks they won't be. Mikey nods but doesn't say anything, and then they _are_ sitting there in silence again. Way to go, Pete. Good work, picking up that ball and running with it.

It feels like forever until Mikey stands up. 

'I'm gonna lay down.' He's still quiet. 'Don't stay up too late,' he adds, because he's apparently picked up on the weird, insomniac-person hours Pete keeps.

Like he's one to talk. Mikey doesn't sleep particularly well -- or even particularly regularly -- either. Pete's noticed. But he doesn't say anything.

He watches Mikey carefully navigate the obstacle course of the joint Wentz-Toro-Iero floordrobe, and then Pete definitively doesn't sleep. He stares up at the rafters, or what he can see of them in the mostly-dark, and a hollow, unhappy feeling cores through him, in the cradle of space between his ribs and his hips. He thinks about polarity fields and the way they sound -- or maybe they don't have a sound, maybe that's magnetic fields. Pete can't say he ever paid much attention in the back of a high school physics classroom. In either case, he can picture an ineffable field, a thrumming thing, whatever it is. Brought to life whenever Mikey passes too close. 

Ugh.

If he could roll his eyes at himself, he would. 

Instead, he exhales through his nose and contemplates the fucking afterschool teen drama that his life has become until Andy, the human alarm clock, gets up at 5:45 am on the dot and notices Pete watching him. 

'Did you sleep at all?' he murmurs, and it's not a fond, soft, maternal murmur, either; it's the murmur of 'only my consideration for our houseguests is preventing me from shouting at you'. 

'Not like I don't try, Hurley,' Pete murmurs back. 

Andy rolls his eyes and beckons Pete down into the kitchen, where he leans against the bar and waits for Pete and his blanket burrito to shuffle down the stairs. 

'So. Are we gonna talk about why Lead Asshole is suddenly all over you again?'

'Who told you? Since I obviously didn't get a chance.' _You're always disappearing,_ he wants to accuse, but Andy's a solitary creature and Pete's known that for years, and now he's got a houseful of people. If he wants to piss off and try and meditate or whatever at race nights when Pete's busy, who's Pete to complain?

'It's you and Leto,' Andy remarks. 'Seventeen fucking people told me, Pete. I couldn't move for gossip. And Ray gave me the rundown on what actually happened.' 

He fixes coffee as he says it -- two mugs, because he's the best, and it's good coffee because, unlike some of the houseguests, Pete isn't hungover. And, god, Pete loves him, vegan half-and-half and all. 

'It just bothers me.' Andy passes Pete a mug when it's ready.

Pete sips then wrinkles his nose. Andy rolls his eyes and reaches to pass him the sugar, too.

'Leto bothers everyone,' Pete points out, taking the sugar to his coffee in two heaping spoonfuls.

'He's a jerk,' Andy agrees. 'He's more than a jerk -- but. He doesn't normally go straight for you. Not since -- not in years.' 

Pete bites the ceramic rim. Lets the coffee burn him a little. Andy frowns at nothing. 

'I just -- why the sudden change in MO?'

'He wanted to know if I was racing again,' Pete volunteers. 'Fucking asshole.'

Andy's mouth thins out into a very straight, very uncomfortable line. 

'Do you think he's seen you and Mikey--'

'Mikey does the driving, dude,' says Pete, and it's not 100% true but it was one lap, one stupid lap, and there really was no one there and Pete doesn't want that unhappy Andy expression to be because of him. 'I just ride shotgun and try to get him to stop granny-shifting.'

'Then it was your dick-measuring contest with Frank. I told you it was stupid.'

Pete rolls his eyes. He knows Andy's right. He knows Leto's whole beef was -- and is -- that Pete could outpace anyone in Leto's crew, and did. All the fucking time. So did Patrick, for that matter. And maybe that's not a problem when you're just a bad sport, but Leto's more than a bad sport; he makes a business out of races falling in his favor. 

Except Patrick isn't here anymore. 

And Pete …

Pete's doing exactly what he's been doing for two fucking years.

So yeah, he's a little annoyed when Andy sighs and asks, 'But seriously, why the hell would a quarter mile with someone who isn't even racing right now suddenly get him on your back again? It's … weird.'

'C'mon, Andy, he's just a creep with a grudge, he's not Professor Moriarty.'

Andy crosses his arms. 

'Call me a tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorist, but after the whole thing with Gerard? The timing's suspicious, that's all.'

Pete squints at him. 'You think seriously he knows something about that?' He's a little incredulous, but even as he says it, he realizes that it really _could_ be true. Ever the sleazebag, Leto has his fingers in a lot of gross little pies. 

On the bright side: if Leto knew something about who shot Gerard, then Pete would have a really nice, neat little excuse to go and punch him in the nose to find out.

Andy shrugs. 'I don't know, it's. Just. Be careful, that's all.'

Pete almost says _I'm always careful_ , even though he isn't. That would be the joke of it, if Andy didn't sound so sincerely concerned. 

'Doing my best.'

It's not the best promise, but it's the one he has to offer. He finishes his coffee and, before he can even ask, Andy reaches for his empty mug to refill it, their fingers brushing. 

***

Two days later, Mikey returns from the hospital looking so thoroughly stricken that Pete immediately assumes the worst. Instead, Mikey sits at the kitchen bar and says, like he's waiting for it to somehow not be true, 'The doctors think Gerard can come home.'

The words hang, stark, in the air and apparently everyone else also can't believe it's true because there's a weird, dilated moment in which no one says or does anything.

But then Frank claps Mikey on the shoulder, says _fucking finally_ , and Ray and Andy ask things like 'how soon', 'what time', and 'what will he need' because they're responsible human beings. And Pete? Has nothing to contribute, so he doesn't bother, except to smile at Mikey when he catches his eye, hoping that's enough. There isn't enough room in this fucking loft for another person, but that's a bridge they'll cross when they get to it. 

'When they get to it' turns out to be two days later, and Ray drives Mikey to the hospital and then drives Mikey _and_ Gerard back to the garage. And it's not like Pete hasn't ever seen Mikey and Gerard together before -- they were attached at the hip when they first showed up on the scene -- but he's never seen Mikey and Gerard together like _this_. Gerard, gone just a little bit pallid, wincing every time he turns too fast or leans too hard into a step. Who can't really lift up anything heavier than a mug with his left arm. And Mikey fluttering around him, quiet as usual, but softer than Pete's ever seen him outside of their weird, shared moments in those grey hours between too-late and too-early.

They have to do more shuffling to accommodate Gerard in a space that can't accommodate any of them at all, not realistically. Mikey makes room on the futon that was, once, Pete's bed for Gerard's sake and Gerard spends most of his time laying down, or sitting up but not moving -- which means Mikey spends most of his time cramped next to Gerard, on the thin, uncomfortable excuse for a mattress, but there's not much to be done about that.

There's also not much to be done about the morning Pete rouses from a shitty half-sleep to find Mikey sitting up with Gerard, _painting his fucking nails_ of all things. Gerard notices Pete first, and offers a smile as hollow and colorless as the early morning light. Pete can't imagine how much he must be hurting. Or -- he can, but he's spent a lot of time trying not to remember it.

'Hey,' Gerard says.

Mikey, so fixated on his task, apparently didn't notice Pete's getting up at all. He looks up now, though, soft, unguarded surprise passing like a cloud -- not the stormy kind; the pale ones, the kind that Pete, as a kid, used to pretend were made of cotton or cotton candy -- over his face. 

'Pete.'

The nail polish is … maybe less garish than it could be, knowing Gerard. Red, but not the color of his hair. Darker, in a way that makes Pete think of late autumn. Mikey perches so carefully on the edge of the futon, Gerard's hand spread out over his, and Pete has never seen a person take such care not to jostle. He's certainly never seen _Mikey_ be this gentle with anything, letting Gerard's fingers curl oh-so-slightly over his, like they're fragile and precious. 

Pete wonders where they even got the polish in the first place.

'We have to go to PT later,' Mikey murmurs, his attention back on Gerard. 'I told Gee he has to look pretty.'

Gerard doesn't really laugh -- because laughing must hurt too -- but he gives Mikey a fond look. 'Consumptive chic.' 

Mikey wrinkles his nose. 'There's nothing chic about tuberculosis.'

'Edgar Allan Poe would beg to differ.' 

'Gross.' 

Gerard squeezes Mikey's fingers just that much, and suddenly Pete feels out of place and embarrassed. He rubs at the prickling feeling on the back of his neck.

'Do you guys … need anything?'

Gerard looks at him again and offers that same thin but sincere smile. 'I'm okay, but thanks.'

'Me too,' Mikey tells him. He says it like he hasn't really thought about it, and probably won't think about it either, all his attention back on Gerard's nails.

Pete can't put a name to whatever he's feeling, so he just nods once, jerky, and goes down to find Andy already in the kitchen. Frank and Ray are nowhere to be found, but he guesses that's normal. It's not like any one of them loves this living situation as it is.

Andy glances up at the sound of his footsteps.

'I've got three new cars in today,' he says, once he's finished the last mouthful of his smoothie. It's brown. Pete's pretty sure that's not because it's chocolate flavoured. 'Can you do me a favour and pick up around here a bit? Maybe, god forbid, clean the toilet?'

Pete fishes through the cupboards for something to eat that isn't full of deadly vitamins and comes up empty. He settles for an apple instead. 'No problem.'

Andy almost looks startled. 'Who are you and what have you done with Pete Wentz?' 

'Fuck you.'

'No thanks.'

Pete pokes his tongue out. Quiet, unfamiliar laughter drifts to the kitchen from upstairs, though, and he can't think of anything snide to say. He chomps through the apple instead, chucks the core in the little compost bucket Andy insists they use, and then cracks his knuckles. 

'Where's the bleach? I'm gonna need something industrial strength. We need to eat less beans, dude, seriously.'

Andy just rolls his eyes and leaves Pete to fish the bleach out from under the sink without a word. By the time he's done with the bathroom, he's a bit woozy from fumes, and Andy has disappeared. Grocery run, presumably.

The Ways are gone too, and that leaves Pete alone in the loft. He shuffles up the stairs, but that just leaves him surrounded by too many empty mattresses, flattened pillows, and tangled blankets. He supposes he could try to tidy those up too, but he aches all of a sudden. Too many nights of not enough sleep.

Back to the ground floor, then. 

At least he has the illusion of breathing space down here, on the ugly couch. It's a substantially shittier piece of furniture than the one Andy has upstairs -- Pete can always hear it creaking when he sits -- but it does the job. He curls his knees up to his chest and feels around for the remote. There's nothing on TV that he really wants to watch, but his joints feel sore, and his teeth feel hollow and brittle, and even like this, even in the absolute silence of finally having the loft to himself, he can't _really_ fall asleep. 

He flicks the TV off.

Outside, a grey drizzle turns itself over and becomes a sincerely decent downpour. Every other day in LA it's fucking sunny and beautiful, but today? When he already feels like shit? It's like the city saves up all its ugly moments just for him and him alone. It makes everything smell metallic and gross, and an oily taste ekes into the loft even though Pete shut the place up. He reaches over the arm of the couch to feel around for a hoodie.

Instead his hand grabs something soft and folded. One of Andy's ten-thousand blankets. He huddles into it, listening to the sound of the rain. Pete tucks the blanket tighter, and closes his eyes. Maybe he can just will himself into sleep …

The lock -- the one on the actual front door, not the heavy steel entrance into the garage -- clicks. Pete pretends not to hear it because … because. Because he doesn't have the fucking energy to deal with anyone, among other things.

So his heart skips a full beat when he hears _Uh_ , just one monosyllabic breath. A sound uttered in a voice he knows. He twists, tangled in the blanket, to see Joe stomp in from the storm, blowing rainwater off his lips.

But it's not Joe who--

Patrick -- _Patrick_ \-- shuffles in too close to Joe, like the both of them were scrambling to get out of the rain, except Patrick stops to wipe his feet on the doormat that everyone else ignores. Rain runs off the brim of his hat, and he's _looking at Pete_ , and. 

And.

Pete must be fucking dreaming.

He did fall asleep on the couch. He did, and now he's dreaming, because there's not a shot in hell that this is really happening, except Joe gives him a weird 'hello to you too' look from behind his dripping curls, like the last two fucking years didn't happen and it's normal for him to be standing there, dripping disgusting LA piss-and-grit-flavoured rain onto the loft's floor. 

Patrick just stands on the mat with his mouth parted just so, like he was going to say something and forgot what it was. 

'Pete?' 

It startles Pete out of his daze. He's not dreaming. He doesn't dream much anyway, but if he did dream of Patrick, Patrick wouldn't say his name like that. Wary and guarded and flat, like he isn't used to saying it, like he doesn't know _how_ to say it.

The silence between them swells.

'... are you guys looking for Hurley?' Pete manages. He goes with that instead of _how did you get in_ because that's obvious, they've got a key, they've still got a fucking key, and that means Andy must know they're here, or have been talking to them, or -- something. Something, and he didn't tell Pete. 'He's out -- I'm just … holding down the fort,' he says before either of them can answer him. 'Sorry to disappoint.' He tries to force a laugh into the way he says it, but it falls dull and flat and too truthful. 

'We figured we should talk to both of you, actually,' Joe answers and, the lack of preamble notwithstanding, he manages not to sound fucking shellshocked. 'Is he gonna be long? We can wait.'

Pete shrugs one shoulder. 'Probably not. Come in.'

He could leave, is the thing. They've got a key, they're semi-civilised adults, he trusts them not to jack all of Andy's shit and burn the place down, so he could absolutely find a reason to leave, an errand to run -- but Joe shrugs out of his wet jacket, fluffs his hands through damp hair, and plops himself down on the couch next to Pete, and looks sidelong at him. 

Pete meets his gaze, and the way Joe's just … there, half smiling and waiting for Pete to get over himself. It uncracks a little part of Pete, somehow. 

'Long time, no see,' Pete manages, wry. 

Joe shrugs. 'It was a shitty long time.'

'Shitty enough that it caught up to you?' He picks at his nailbeds. He was never good at nonchalant. Or at the makeups you're supposed to have after things fall apart. 

Joe glances at Patrick, who appears to have taken root in front of the door like a goddamn Ent or something.

'Yeah,' he cedes. He sounds just a little bit wrung out.

Pete doesn't look directly at Patrick, but he only needs to see the angle of his stance to know he's shutting down, that way he does (the way he _did_ ), and he's gonna let Joe and Pete do all the talking. A needle, sour and sharp and over bright, pierces Pete's chest.

He kicks himself up off the couch, looking back to Joe. 'Well, while we wait, you want anything to drink?'

Joe's smile is faint. _Haunted_ might be the word, or ghostly, at the very least, like he isn't quite sure if he's allowed to cede something. Cede what, Pete has no idea, but he sympathizes.

'Yeah.' Joe gets to his feet. 'Thanks.'

Pete doesn't look back at Patrick again, leading the way to the kitchen.

***

They haven't been at Andy's place five minutes before Joe decides that the heavy feeling in his gut on the drive down from Anaheim was dead on the money. Patrick's clammed up silence should have been fucking predictable, but Joe dared to hope. 

Optimism. Not for the faint of heart.

For what it's worth, Pete's not openly hostile, and Joe counts that as a minor mercy. He smiles at Joe, and it breaks something in Joe's heart to see it. Two years and some odd months, and only just now does it feel like he was allowed to miss it. The soft things about Pete, underneath all the bravado. The smell of Andy's loft. A rhythm that carried on without him and Patrick, apparently, but that he remembers. The kind of thing that makes it feel like coming _home_ , not just coming back.

He offers Pete a smile in return. 

And then he glares at Patrick when Pete bounces up to go to the kitchen in search of the drinks. Maybe it's unfair of him, but he'd like to remind everyone that _Patrick_ is the whole reason they're here in the first place. Patrick and his quiet, rigid worries.

_Patrick_ , who bit his lip too hard. Who didn't say shit about the whispers of a fucking driveby for two goddamn days. Who finally did mumble: _We should go. We should tell them_. 

Joe follows Pete down to the kitchen, and Patrick follows Joe following Pete like a dead silent shadow. 

He isn't shouting, though. Joe decides to count his blessings.

Pete's head is in the fridge already by the time they catch up to him.

'What do you want?' he asks. 'We've got ... like -- well, not alcohol, obviously. Hurley's body is a temple, or whatever the shit.'

Joe sighs in mourning for the fucking beer he could really use right now, and he's totally given up on Patrick saying anything at all, so he shrugs even though Pete can't see him. 

'Does he still have that fizzy -- whatever. The Italian sodas?'

A glassy jingle, 'Yeah. Lemon?'

'Sure.'

Pete passes one to him and … doesn't really glance at Patrick, which is just as well, because Patrick's staring at his feet. It takes actual, physical effort for Joe to not roll his eyes.

Bottles in hand, they have to pick their back to the couch. 

The loft is messier than Joe remembers -- not that it was staggeringly neat before, but Andy at least used to try to corral Pete's whirlwind attitude toward neatness and organization. Now there are too many shoes and jackets piled around or hanging up by the door, and a sort of staggering number of socks and hoodies and pajama bottoms just … on the floor in the sitting room. Joe twists his soda open and decides he isn't gonna ask. But Patrick, lingering on the threshold to the kitchen, stares. 

Honestly? It's fucking stunning. He couldn't be less subtle if he tried. Everyone used to say that Joe had no tact. Joe would like them all to know that he's the soul of tact when you compare him to Patrick. 

'How's Anaheim?' Pete asks when he and Joe sit again.

Patrick has apparently decided that propping up the kitchen doorway, as if that's in any way comfortable, is going to be his pose for the evening. Joe exhales a measured breath. Let him do what he fucking wants.

'Anaheim sucks.' He takes a pull off the soda. Just as good as he remembered. 'Full of bullshit and tourists.'

'You knew that before you rolled out,' says Pete. It's not mean. It could be, but it's not. 

'Guess I did.'

It's … marginally easier after that. Pete twitches and hollow-laughs his way through small talk -- this crazy weather, that local sports team. Pete literally says 'that local sports team' -- Joe has no idea which one he means if he even does mean a specific one, but they riff on it. They have to pass Patrick again to get a second round of sodas, and Pete … falls silent for a second, so Joe has to carry the conversation. 

It could be worse. It's better than letting the heavy quiet from Patrick's corner swamp the room. They do settle at the bar, though, because Joe doesn't think Pete can be that close to Patrick again to get back to the couch, and Pete appears to agree. Patrick does edge his way into the kitchen proper, but keeps his distance. Which basically means he's all but plastered against the far wall.

Whatever.

Joe sips at his soda. He and Pete talk about Hurley's cars, and about engines, and about fucking _tires_. By some miracle, even smiling at each other doesn't feel quite so weird by the time he hears the door to the loft swings open again.

'Pete' -- Andy's voice, loud and vaguely annoyed -- 'you better be awake and ready to fucking help me because I'm not feeding the horde by my goddamn self--' 

And then all of a sudden, in one brief, bruised moment, there's Hurley. Just standing in the doorway. Two armloads of groceries and his hair in his face, straggly beard and labret piercing and all. 

Joe slips off his stool to grab one of the grocery bags before it can actually fall out of Andy's grip. 'Hey.'

Andy looks from Joe, to Patrick, then back again. 'Who died?'

It might sound like a joke -- he does smile a little bit, after all. But the look in his eyes is deadly serious. 

For the first time since they stepped into the fucking loft, Patrick answers. 'No one. But--' He halts, stilted.

Andy arches an eyebrow. 'But?' 

Patrick doesn't actually finish his sentence, because apparently he's having some kind of an Extended Moment here, so Joe steps in. His life has become a complete test of mettle, or something. 'We're trying to make sure no one actually does die.'

There are probably better ways to phrase that, but he's a little bit beyond finesse right at this moment. Also, his jeans have warmed up enough to not be cold, but they're still wet, and they stick to him like a damp, humid blanket. So that's not helping.

Andy huffs. 'Of course. Why the fuck not.'

It's the sort of gallows humor Joe would expect of him. A weird, grim nonchalance about possible threats to his life -- and it makes everything so much easier. Joe helps put the groceries away, like he's on autopilot. Another thing he apparently never forgot -- where everything goes, Andy's careful, meticulous order for his kitchen.

He watches Andy dig out pots and pans, calm as anything. He watches Pete visibly unwind, just that much. He lets Patrick do whatever he wants on his proverbial island of not coping well and does most of the talking. 

While Andy shuffles at a cutting board, Joe tells them: 

A shooting or something -- that's what they heard.

Some shit about Leto, for the umpteenth time. That part just feels like a curse. Even in Anaheim, even two fucking years out of the scene, and they still hear about him, like he's the fucking boogeyman in the shadows, waiting to pounce. Joe doesn't say this part, just that they heard about him. It's enough.

And Pete? Well. What Joe does say is only that they heard he'd been there when the shooting happened. That the story spun out from there. A guy new to the scene, a guy who drove too well, caught the bullet. A bullet that, by the time it got whispered down the lane, may or may not have been _meant_ for this Gerard Way.

Which, to sum it all up, is why they're here.

Andy chops vegetables neatly. 'How much does all this include Leto, exactly?'

'I dunno, depends on who you ask. The story's kind of a mess. Ten different I-heard-from-he-heard-from-she-heards. Everyone agreed, though: the Way guy was tangled up in a lot of shit. Or running from that shit, at any rate. Leto's name just came up a few times, as related to said shit.'

Andy's _uh-huh_ makes it clear that he expects Joe to keep talking.

'We wouldn't have come if it seemed like just idle gossip.' Patrick says from his corner of the kitchen. He sounds aggrieved.

Joe rolls his eyes because his timing is fucking impeccable. Thank you, Patrick.

' _We_ were worried. Pete was in the middle of a fucking driveby. A guy no one's ever heard of, with a shady history, got shot. And people keep mentioning Jared Leto.' 

Pete actually drops the can of tomatoes that he was opening and snaps _are you fucking kidding me?_ , but goes to mop up the spill at Andy's look. At least the can wasn't all the way open. 

Joe talks neatly over the shuffle. ' _And_ we figured -- since someone apparently has it out for this guy enough to attempt fucking murder -- we'd let you know. Since it sounds like you were making friends out on the tarmac.' Pete actually winces, and Joe decides not to ask what that's about. 'Also, shootings aside, it … doesn't put anyone at ease to hear Leto's name come up in the middle of any story. Especially if--'

For the first time all night, he can't bring himself to finish a sentence. So Andy finishes for him.

'Especially if you hear about Leto and then you hear about Pete.' He says it plainly. Another moment that could sting, but doesn't. He does level a look at Patrick, though. 'You plan on sticking around to see how that pans out?'

Joe watches Patrick's jaw go tight. 

'Yeah, actually.' He keeps his eyes on Andy, like he's trying to will himself not to see Pete. 'We'll stay, I mean.' 

Joe takes it for what it is, and apparently so does Andy. He nods in one clipped motion and goes back to food prep. 

'Help Joe clear up the bar. We're feeding a lot of fucking people tonight, turns out.'

Joe straightens up. More things he doesn't say: that he's fucking grateful. That it means something, to hear Andy say his name like that, like he knows he's trying. That not all was lost when he followed Patrick off into their own personal version of purgatory and that he gets to come back to it now, no penance expected.

Maybe it makes him a wistful romantic. Either way, he sets to work.

***

Ten minutes into dinner prep and Andy makes up his mind. He can make amends with Joe -- maybe because the grief between them wasn't really between _them_ , specifically, and because he can tell that Joe is trying to salvage something out of the ashes even after two years of radio silence.

He thinks, briefly, of the extra key to his loft. The one Joe used to keep, and that Andy didn't think to ask for when everything went to shit. He wonders if that's how they got in, or if Pete had to answer the door and find them both standing there, like ghosts flapping in the chill of the past.

Joe is one thing. Andy keeps himself between Pete and Patrick. Forgiveness doesn't mean no lines in the sand.

Twenty-five minutes into dinner prep, the kitchen rings with the sound of the front door kicking open. Even over the sound of the sauce simmering on the stove, Andy can hear two sets of footsteps shuffling around the mess in the too-small sitting room.

Only Mikey appears in the kitchen doorway, though, and Pete actually flinches.

'Joe, Patrick,' Andy says, neatly. 'Mikey. Mikey -- Joe and Patrick.'

Joe nods and smiles, warm as anything. 'Hey.'

'Uh. Hi.'

Patrick only nods and doesn't say anything. Andy could have more sympathy.

'Mikey's crashing here for a while,' he explains. 'And his brother, Gerard.'

Let that sink in. It speaks to Joe's grace that he doesn't balk -- neither does Patrick, really, but he hasn't been saying enough to balk in the first place. Andy watches him watch Mikey and has to fight a brief flare of irritation.

'Do you need help?' Mikey asks.

'No, we're good. You can chill -- everything'll be ready soon.'

'Okay.'

Quiet as the grave, Mikey vanishes -- back to Gerard, presumably. Andy makes Pete help him with carting around dishes. It's pasta tonight, with sauce, and a tomato salad because Andy is going to force Pete and Frank to at least make a go of feeding themselves like human beings instead of slop animals.

They don't really have anywhere to seat this many people, so they're going to have to make do in the living room, small as it is. He nudges Pete to the loft to grab the extra cushions off the upstairs couch. 

When Frank and Ray make their appearance, just as Andy's finished straining the pasta, Joe _does_ look briefly surprised. Frank and Ray also look surprised.

Andy supposes there's a lot to take in.

'Here,' he says, handing Frank a bowl of salad before he can say anything. 'We're gonna have to eat off our laps, I guess.'

Ray gets a stack of plates without asking anything. Joe grabs the pasta and Andy figures he'll handle the sauce himself.

Patrick sort of perks up and looks at Andy like he's, on autopilot, expecting a task, so Andy hands him napkins, silverware, and the salt and pepper. 

Pete's sort of pulled every piece of soft furnishing he can find into a rough circle, like an inspan of wagons, and the various bowls of food and handfuls of utensils have been put in the middle. Mikey, always pressed close to Gerard, sits on the lumpy couch with Gerard on the floor by his legs. He really shouldn't be down there but Andy isn't going to stir up an argument right now. 

He does look drawn, though. He holds his one arm so carefully against his side and reaches to take a plate with a hand that looks odd until Andy refocuses and realises his nails have been painted. Because he's too sweet a person, he actually smiles at Patrick who … sort of smiles back. 

Mikey just stares at his lap.

Andy tosses a bag of vegan cheese shreds into the pile and drops onto the pillow next to the other end of the couch, where Frank sits. 

'Dig in, everyone,' he says. 

Most of them don't need prompting. Mikey fills Gerard a bowl before he does his own, Andy notices, and the only thing that's surprising about that is Mikey not actually trying to spoonfeed his brother, although probably Gerard would fight him off if he tried. 

Patrick waits til Pete's done before moving even a finger, like he's afraid of bumping hands with the guy. It makes him conspicuous, which Andy knows he hates, but hey. He makes his own choices. Joe's already digging in and elbowing Pete, at least. He'll be fine. _They'll_ be fine. 

Patrick is another thing. 

Andy sighs, and reaches across to grab the pasta. 

***

It is, without a doubt, a miserable meal.

Mikey concentrates on Gerard, because that gives him an excuse to _not_ concentrate on the fact that what should be a perfectly normal group meal isn't quite crossing the uncanny valley here. Pete sits between Ray and the new guy, Joe, picking at his food. It's the quietest Mikey has ever seen him. And maybe it wouldn't be so weird if Ray and Joe weren't so obviously trying to maintain an awkward cadence of small talk, but they are, and their voices shape themselves around Pete's silence and that somehow makes the silence louder. 

He supposes Frank deserves some consideration for also making an effort but … it's hard to look in Frank's direction, really. Harder than looking at Pete, even, whose haunted air of sunken-eyed exhaustion might break something in Mikey's heart on a better day. 

The other new guy, Patrick, just sits silent across from Frank, on Ray's other side, rigid and silent. 

He stopped feigning a smile at Gerard the second Andy appeared, so Mikey decides he can't be assed to give a fuck. 

Mikey turns a little when Gerard fumbles with his fork, a sympathetic pain lancing through his sternum. He moves his legs a bit, trying to give Gerard room to move if he needs to; taking stock of the bloodless look on Gerard's face. Mikey knows he can't pick up the fork for him, but--

_It's a good hurt, right?_ Gerard joked when they left PT. 

Even then, he looked a little raw, and the therapist smiled at him, but it wasn't a particularly happy smile.

_It is. But it isn't fun._

It's not the first time Mikey wishes Gerard hadn't flushed the pain meds down the toilet. It's not like he doesn't get it -- he does, he really really does -- but. 

But Gerard gives up on the fork, on his food, and on the evening apparently. Quiet as anything, he leans back against Mikey's legs, like it's too much work to keep himself upright. Mikey can't do anything except stroke his hair when he rests his head against Mikey's knee. 

The conversation carries on, over them. 

'Mikes?'

Mikey starts, just a very little, his hand still against Gerard's hair. He doesn't know quite when he let his focus come undone. Or. Not undone. But telescoped down to Ray, watching Gerard with a look of worry. 

Mikey's train of thought drifts again, until Gerard moves against his leg.

'Mikey,' he repeats, softly. 'Help me up? I … should lay down.' 

Mikey catches Frank's aggressive mother-duck -- or papa-bear? -- look, but he gets to his feet, first, hooking an arm around Gerard's back to help him without pulling on his arms.

'You need help getting upstairs?' Frank asks, at exactly the same time that Andy suggests: 'Joe, can you help me clear up?'

Mikey glances at Andy and hopes it's enough to let him know how fucking grateful he is. 

'We're okay,' he promises Frank. Frank shouldn't be doing anything, really, Mikey knows

Pete … vanishes into the kitchen with a grip of dishes before anyone can say anything to him. Joe's a little less quick about it, clearly having realized that Frank is slightly unsteady on his feet, and probably not the one to carry serving bowls or a stack of cups to the kitchen. 

Mikey supposes he could offer to help too, at least, but it's hard to be bothered to pretend that he wants to be anywhere except where he is, helping Gerard to the steps. 

Andy and Frank don't press the matter. 

Joe follows Ray to the kitchen, dishware in hand. 

And Patrick?

Mikey wonders if Patrick thinks that he, Mikey, is fucking blind or something -- or if he thinks he's being subtle. Either way, it's hard to miss the frigid glance he throws in their direction as they pass. Mikey almost rolls his eyes at him, because he doesn't know what the hate-on is about, but fuck you too. But then Patrick's gone, and all that's left is the sound of voices drifting up from Andy's kitchen, and even that rankles. 

They make it to the futon. Mikey helps Gerard down and then sits on the edge, their fingertips touching. He listens to Gerard breathe, trying to ignore the voices downstairs.

***

'--the bathroom situation alone--' drifts in from the garage floor, where Andy and Ray Toro have retreated to talk … logistics, going by the snippets of conversation that Patrick catches. 

It makes him restless, for whatever reason.

So does sitting in Andy's jumbled-together space of a living room, watching Joe and Frank goddamn Iero sit on the couch together, spinning yarns. 

_What the fuck_ feels like the only possible response to the whole situation.

What the fuck, and the itchy, angry feeling twisting up in his gut. 

And really, it's not that he was expecting to come back and find everything how it was the day he left -- crooked Pantera posters on the wall, Pete's hair straighteners plugged into a corner outlet, the weird not-quite-smell of cooking rice. He was prepared for the dissonance, like going back to your parents' place after you first move away. He _knew_ it wouldn't be the same. 

Except the Pantera poster is still where it was in the garage and Pete's hair straighteners are newer but still in the same place, the spot where the scorchmark is on the carpet, and the place does smell of warm starch and mysterious vegetables and engine oil. But there are other people on the furniture. Someone else's jackets on the pegs down by the front door, and one of them belongs to the guy whose name Patrick kept hearing from shadier and shadier corners, the guy he came here to fucking warn Pete about. 

Shot, hurt, and sleeping in Pete's fucking bed.

It's a cold comfort that, at least, Pete isn't stupid enough to sleep there too.

Or that's what Patrick hopes. It wouldn't be the first time Pete threw all caution to the wind for a pretty bedfellow. 

And if he did, well--

Some things never change.

Joe and Frank carry on. Something, something -- Patrick catches a mention of carburettors. Over that, though, the soft clink of dishware in the kitchen, and suddenly he can't sit still anymore. He must stand very abruptly, or at least he must look … irritated, maybe. Joe casts him a glance at any rate. Patrick doesn't have the energy for it, walks past without a word. 

He knows, before he even gets to the darkened kitchen doorway, that it's Pete doing the dishes. Something in the rhythm of a movement he can hear but not see. A cadence. 

He remembers having realized this, a long number of summers ago. Hearing that specific rhythm and learning it. He always knew where Pete was; he could have found him in a dark room while blindfolded, a sixth sense. It was at least part of why they raced so well together. 

Now it's just a thing that didn't die with time, the way it should have. 

And because he just can't fucking leave well enough alone, he gets himself all the way to the kitchen threshold. As per expected: there's Pete, standing at the sink. Half lost to the gloom, because he didn't bother to turn any lights on, so he's just standing there, doing the dishes in the castoff glow from the sitting room. 

He flinches without even turning around, and Patrick halts in the doorway.

'Pete.'

A soft, sharp breath. 'You picked a hell of a time to come calling.'

He says it like he's joking, but it falls, flat and excruciating, in the half-dark. He doesn't look up from the sink and Patrick doesn't even know if he means this moment right now, or in general -- like Patrick and Joe turned up at exactly the wrong time. 

'Figured it's better not to wait for shit to get real,' Patrick says, crossing his arms awkwardly. 

Pete takes a breath through his nose like he's going to retort -- and then he just exhales. Patrick can see how tired he is. The soft, bowing line of his shoulders. So fucking tired. 

'It's real enough for me already.'

He sounds exhausted, and sore, and he shifts his shoulders carefully under his shirt as he reaches down and lets the water out of the sink

Not sleeping on the futon, then -- and Patrick supposes that's a relief. A bleeding heart, but not one making as stupid a decision as it could.

On the other hand, it does mean Pete's either been sleeping on one of Andy's shitty camping mattresses or the sofa upstairs, or, God forbid, the one downstairs. Who knows. Either way, knowing Pete, he's _probably_ been lying in the dark, awake, antsy, edgy and uncomfortable, for hours each night. And it shows, and he's hurting. 

Then again, when is Pete not fucking hurting? He's a living, breathing bruise. 

Patrick watches him fish around for something to dry his hands. He thinks of Pete, shivering in a hospital room. 

In the weird twist of shadows, Pete turns around, and doesn't really look at him.

'Do you want something?' He sounds sour.

'I want you to be okay.' 

Which -- fuck. The words vibrate in the dark. 

And Pete takes it exactly the wrong way, too, or some wrong way, anyway -- he draws up like he's been slapped. Whatever he heard, it isn't what Patrick was trying to say. 

He tries to find the next sentence, the explanatory one that follows the statement and clarifies his point, but it's too late. By the time gets he as far as 'I want to help' as some kind of an extension of his point, Pete shoves past him, going for the front door, no jacket, nothing. 

Patrick grabs what must be, absolutely must be Pete's jacket, off the coathook by the door and follows him, but Pete hasn't even made it three steps over the threshold. Patrick almost collides with him, not having expected him to stop moving so soon.

'That's not what I meant,' Patrick says. 

'Really? What _did_ you mean, Patrick, because I don't have a fucking lot to work with here.' 

There's a vicious undercut to his voice, sharp, and ragged, and raw. 

Patrick pulls his glasses off and scrubs a hand over his face and tries to just breathe. It's not raining anymore, but the aftermath of the storm got caught in the smog. Damp and acrid. He wonders where Pete planned to go without a wallet or keys or … anything.

Then again, it's Pete, moved by the gravity of impulse. He probably didn't have a plan at all.

'I'm not saying--' Patrick tries to find the words. 'I just. Not again, okay? That's all. Don't get your brains blown out because you--' 

He catches himself before he can dig that hole any deeper, but it's too late. The shape of what he didn't say billows, awful and oppressive, in the space between them. Pete does look at him, now.

'Glad to have you back, Trick.'

And the shadows ring, and there's nothing left to say. They just stand there, looking at each other, until the door groans on its hinges. 

'Um.' 

Patrick turns at the precise moment that Pete looks past him, a certain kind of dread flickering across his face. The brother -- not Gerard, Mikey -- stands in the open doorway, skinny as a wraith. He looks between them.

'... Andy was looking for Pete?' 

It's apparently all the excuse that Pete needs. He stalks past Mikey without another word, and Mikey has to shuffle to let him, then catch the door again. In his wake: just the sticky nighttime quiet, and Patrick and Mikey, looking at each other.

This dude, with his day-old eyeliner and his ironed-flat hair and his brother, and all the reasons Pete looks like a wrung out ragdoll. Patrick's jaw goes tight.

'I'm … gonna go,' says Mikey after a beat. 

Patrick lets him, and then follows him in after a decent minute or two, because what? Is he gonna stand outside the front door and stare at the sweaty never-quite-dark of an LA night, and emote? He's not Pete.

When it comes time to shuffle everyone around into an entirely not feasible sleeping arrangement, Pete volunteers to take the grungy downstairs sofa and doesn't look at Patrick at all. 

Joe has a wary look, like he thinks he should just sleep down there too, on the floor maybe, but he _does_ look at Patrick and Patrick's too tired to parse what that's about. In the end, Iero and Toro have a minor argument, and Iero takes extra blankets downstairs to sleep on the floor, his apparently busted knee notwithstanding. Toro looks long-suffering.

It leaves Patrick on Andy's sofa and Joe on one of the camping mattresses and all of them trying to sleep through the all-pervading press of claustrophobia.


	4. Chapter 4

Come morning, Joe, for one, would like to personally nominate Ray Toro for a Nobel Peace Prize and also for sainthood.

'We figured you and Patrick could crash back at my place,' Ray says.

Like, seriously. Mother Theresa.

Ray, and Andy, and Iero, and Joe sit or stand around the bar, all of them in various stages of nursing the breakfast smoothies that Andy made. Weird color aside, they aren't even half bad. Patrick, for his part, just stands at the far end of the bar, sipping coffee in dead silence.

Every day, Joe wonders why he loves him.

'I thought you guys were trying to like. Lay low here,' he points out. 'Or are you just into really sweaty sleepovers?'

Iero snorts into what's left of his smoothie. 'I love Toro's musk.'

He might be kidding. It's hard to tell. Either way, he slips off his barstool and squirms past Andy to get to the coffee, and even with his messed up knee, he has a particular nonchalance about him. Joe feels like he could really get along with this guy.

Toro just sighs. 'We are, but … I mean, this situation is literally unworkable and what else are you and Patrick going to do? Bunk up in a motel indefinitely?'

He has a point there. 

'Plus,' Frank chimes in, 'we have actual rooms. And actual beds. No offense, Hurley.'

'None taken.'

'And you guys' -- Joe gestures to Frank and Ray both -- 'you feel okay going back?'

'As okay as we can be,' Ray answers. 'Nothing's happened yet and …'

If it's going to happen, it'll happen anyway. Joe appreciates that kind of bleak realism. He lifts his mug in a small salute.

'Thanks, then.'

'Thanks,' Patrick agrees. 

He sounds very soft and very tired. Joe thinks of Pete, who hadn't moved from his huddle of blankets on the sitting room couch when they walked past this morning. He's going to have to bake Toro a fucking 'thank you for everything' cake, just for splitting these two drama queens up before things could get any worse between them.

Ray just shrugs, smiling a little. 'Happy to help.'

It's much less of a hassle than it could be, getting settled in Toro's place. Probably because neither Patrick nor Joe have much besides like three pairs of underwear with them, and Frank and Ray appear to have about as much to their name, except for Ray's grandma's furniture, apparently. And sure, is it a little awkward? Yes -- but Joe chalks that up at least in part to moving in with two dudes that he didn't know all that well prior to Ray pointing him down to the guest room in his very neat, very cozy house.

Patrick, socialite extraordinaire, persists in saying as little as possible for as long as possible.

In the ever-growing list of things that Joe's grateful for, he adds: Ray Toro's workshop and garage, full of actual tune-up jobs alongside weird pet projects. If anything in the world will help Patrick chill out, it's latching on to technical specs. Which he does. 

It's almost cute, three days in, when Joe catches him in the garage with Ray, geeking out. 

He does finally get around to offering Ray a sincere and heartfelt thank you by the end of the week.

'Hey it's nothing,' Ray tells him.

Joe sincerely disbelieves this. 'Wait til you've lived with him for two years. You're working minor miracles, dude.'

Through the door that opens from the kitchen to the sitting room, Joe can hear Patrick asking Frank something on the order of twenty million questions about his Yamahas. 

'He's just a little keyed up,' Ray says, gently. And then he passes Joe a beer.

Joe snorts. ' _A little_ is generous.'

Ray just shrugs, and Joe is starting to believe that he might be one of those freak people who sincerely sees the best in everyone. Not that there aren't really wonderful things about Patrick, it's just that they're … obscured right now. And Joe has tried to be patient for two years, and that's a little bit exhausting. 

He twists his beer open.

'Still. I haven't seen him chill out this much in … a while.'

Ray just smiles a little, then goes to root around in the fridge. 'It's not so bad. Hurley has the harder job.'

Joe supposes that's true. Patrick's freak neuroticisms aside, he's still just one person. Pete's whole life is a melodrama, and it can't be easy living with that _plus_ a guy recovering from a gunshot wound. 

'I'm making scallion pancakes for dinner,' Ray announces, pulling some dishware out of the cupboards. 'And some chicken, for the meat eaters. And tofu for my betrothed out there. Sound good?'

Joe takes another swig of his beer, astounded all over again at Ray's grace. Half an hour later, he's also astounded at his cooking skills.

'He's a fucking wizard, I swear,' says Frank, chowing down scallion pancake like it might get stolen off his plate. Which it might. It's delicious. Who knows, if he looks away too long, Joe might just take an extra forkful. 

Patrick clears the table afterwards, and Joe helps him do the dishes, because if they don't get in first then Frank will, and Frank isn't gonna get better if he stands at the sink for an hour every night, but Frank has strongly held beliefs about how the cook doesn't clean, it turns out. 

'They're nice,' says Patrick softly, wiping down the countertop after he's let all the water out of the sink. The gurgle from the plughole keeps his voice from carrying. 'I hope … whatever shit Gerard's up to his neck in, I hope they aren't involved.'

'You think either of these two would let something happen to the Ways and not _get_ involved?' Joe asks.

'The Ways haven't been in town that long,' says Patrick. 'Maybe they were crashing here, but--'

Joe shakes his head. Patrick's logic is usually on the money but sometimes he doesn't see the fucking obvious. 

'They're a crew, dude,' he says, drying his hands off and hanging the dishtowel off the oven door handle. 'You didn't see how they were at Andy's place? Iero is fucking ride or die for those kids already. And Toro--'

'Ray mothers everyone,' says Patrick dismissively, like he's known this for his whole life even though they've only been here for a week. Out in the living room, Ray punctuates his point by asking Frank if he's done his stretches yet this evening. 'See?'

'I'm telling you,' says Joe, thinking of the worried light in Ray's eyes when Gerard winced in pain the first night. 'If the Ways are in it, Toro and Iero are in it.'

'Looks like Pete's in it too.' Patrick sounds bitter, which, yeah, okay. Joe doesn't like that part either. 'And Andy. And we don't even know what 'it' is, except that are guns involved.'

'We'll figure it out.' Joe isn't sure this is true, but he tries to rally. He's as frustrated as Patrick, honestly, he's just better at keeping it in check. 'For now, though, how about we figure out some dessert?'

***

'Can I ask a question?'

Mikey always feels a bit like a little kid, sitting in Andy's kitchen. Nine times out of ten, Andy won't let him do anything unless they're making dinner, in which case he gives everyone except Gerard a task. But it's very early morning, right now, and there's no one else up except the two of them, because Andy always gets up early and Mikey couldn't sleep.

And maybe Pete couldn't sleep either; it was hard to tell. Since taking up residence on the living room sofa, he's made a habit of burrowing under his blanket in the mornings. He might be asleep, he might be awake and hiding it. Either way, it makes something sad bubble up in Mikey's stomach to think about touching his shoulder and trying to find out.

So here he is, just sitting in the kitchen, watching Andy make them both oatmeal.

'Ask away.'

'Your, uh. Friends? Joe and Patrick?'

Andy makes a soft sound and reaches to twist off a burner. The kettle -- boiling, but not whistling yet. Andy reminds Mikey of Ray in some ways. Ever mindful of everyone else; always taking care. 

'Or -- I dunno what to call them,' Mikey amends, because he really isn't sure.

'Friends works.' Andy leaves the oatmeal to simmer while he sets up his pourover rig. 'You like yours dark, right?'

Mikey nods. Says _thanks_ when Andy passes him his mug, first, steaming and rich. He reaches for the vegan creamer. 'How do you know them?'

'Joe and Patrick?'

'Yeah.'

'We used to crew together.'

'Like -- wait. You mean like racing?'

Andy carries two bowls of steaming oatmeal to the bar, and then cinnamon and sugar, and then the salt and pepper shaker, because even with stupid shit like this, he bothers to make sure that Mikey has the pick of what he needs. 

'Yeah, like racing,' he says. 'You want butter?'

'Yeah, thanks.' 

It isn't real butter -- some kind of vegan spread that Andy made himself, because he knows how to do shit like that. It's good, whatever it is. 

Mikey stays quiet for a little bit, pretending like he's waiting for the oatmeal to cool off before he says: 

'So they all used to drive? Like, Pete and Patrick and Joe?'

'Yeah. Joe did a little of everything, really. Drove, worked with me; dude can make an engine purr. So can Patrick, really, but he likes vanity projects more.'

'Vanity projects?'

Andy huffs a laugh, like he's remembering that Mikey doesn't speak this language, and finds it endearing. 'Like Toro. Old, shitty cars that no one drives anymore that he's determined to bring back to life just for the challenge.'

'Oh.' Mikey stirs pepper into his oatmeal, then pours the creamer over that, watching how it makes little islands between the peaks of the oats. 'But he used to drive, too.'

'Yeah. Precision shit on street circuits, and rallycross like Frank does, and … everything, really.'

'But not anymore.'

'Not anymore.'

Mikey wonders if he's pushing his luck when he asks: 'Why?'

Andy sips his coffee. 'Long story.'

Not pushing his luck, then, but Andy says it with an air of finality. Mikey blows on a spoonful of oatmeal and stops asking questions that maybe no one wants to answer. Andy won't let him help with the dishes when they're done, but he does hand off an extra bowl. _For Gerard._

Mikey takes it, feeling guilty and grateful and … too many other tangled things. That little-kid feeling again, but this time appended with an adult's awe. Andy cares, like Ray cares, and Frank cares. Like Pete cares, even if Pete's way of showing it is … a little outside the norm. Andy stops to think of things like Gerard, and how he might need breakfast too. 

Mikey carries the bowl, and napkins, and a cup of coffee that Gerard will probably get too tired to finish back up to the loft. On the way, he notices Pete's pile of blankets; a thatch of black hair. He still hasn't moved.

It's a hard, long day -- but all his days seem to be that way, now. He goes with Gerard to PT again, and comes back tired and sad. Some small part of him wishes he could ask Pete to go for a drive again but that's gotten harder to do with Gerard back. Worry leaves him frayed and scared, and keeps him up too late.

That part -- that last part -- is just as well, though. His burner phone goes off after Gerard and Andy have fallen asleep. He wishes the stairs out of the loft weren't quite so creaky. Even if Pete weren't awake on the downstairs sofa (and he probably is), Mikey's sure the sound of his descent would rouse him. If it does, though, or if he's just hiding under his blankets, he doesn't try to stop Mikey going. And he doesn't say anything when Mikey comes back, and he doesn't say anything the next morning, or the next several mornings after that. 

Mikey kind of hates himself. 

Ray and Frank come by most days. Sometimes that Joe guy does too. Mikey likes him -- he's friendly, and charming, and it's sort of soothing to listen to him and everyone else shoot the shit about engines or whatever, and argue with Andy about the best way to take care of this car or that one, like Andy hasn't been running a shop for literal years. 

And Pete brightens up when Joe's around, too.

Mikey doesn't know why he cares about that part, but, sitting at the kitchen bar, with his head rested on the bartop because he's too tired for anything else, and too worried he'll seem too tired if he goes upstairs to lay with Gerard, Pete's relative happiness suddenly seems very important. 

Pete comes alive at the races, too -- or that's how it seems every time Frank insists that Mikey come out with them. Mikey doesn't want to go -- not ever -- but he tries to make the best of it; tries to remember who wins, and what they were driving, and what kind of stupid scene gossip circulates on the sidelines just so he has a good story to tell Gerard afterwards. He texts Gerard too. Like a lot, all night, every time. If he didn't, he thinks he'd spend the whole time scared that leaving Gerard alone meant someone was going to break into Andy's loft and finish what Leto started with a driveby shooting. 

Really, that gutsick fear would make any race night unbearable, but something about Pete's happy bravado makes it a little bit better. Or maybe it's the fact that Pete always offers to take him back to the loft before the afterparties really get started, just so he can sit with Gerard. Or maybe it's just that Pete never asks why he looks so tired all the time, or where he goes at night. Or maybe it's all of the above.

He doesn't know.

Pete's decency notwithstanding, he's not the only one to notice that Mikey looks like shit.

'You doing okay?' Ray asks one night while they're all lounging around Andy's grill. 

Mikey wishes 'no' wouldn't get caught in the back of his throat. But they're all out in the open air, and he's scared of what he says out here; scared that he'll say it, and find himself backed up against another wall, later, with Leto telling him he blew it. 

'Yeah, I'm just. Tired.'

Ray looks at him for a little while -- enough to make him feel itchy. _Gerard's_ the one who usually gets those kinds of lingering, worried looks from Ray when Ray visits. And Gerard should get them, Gerard got fucking shot. Mikey's just … fucking up. 

'Stop acting like my mom.' He bumps Ray's shoulder with his. 'I'm okay, really. I just want Gee to be better.'

'No late one-night stands keeping you up, then?' Frank teases from Ray's other side, but it's a gentle teasing, like he's trying to bring the conversation down from a weird, sad, keyed-up place.

No one else is really standing close enough to hear, or if they are, they aren't paying attention. Saporta's on the other side of the grill, telling what seems like an odyssey of a story and gesticulating a lot. Still, Mikey glances at Pete, not for any good reason except that he's standing the closest to them, and catches the brief way his grin slips. 

'I don't kiss and tell, Iero.'

Frank grins. 'What a gentleman.'

Not much later, Frank wanders off to … who knows where, and Ray strikes up a conversation with Saporta. Mikey angsts or whatever, because he just wants to go home.

'Not having fun anymore?'

He almost startles out of his skin. At his side, Pete grins, but it's a little sad, like he already knows the answer. 

'I just wanna rest, is all.' It's like a profound understatement of the truth, all things considered.

'I feel you.' Pete stretches, hands behind his head. 'We can go back if you want.' 

'Yeah.' 

They help pack up grill stuff and Pete finds Andy's keys resting in the bed of the truck. Andy, though, is nowhere in sight.

'I'll tell him you guys went back,' Ray says. 'Frank and I can drop him off, if Frank ever surfaces.'

Pete nods. 'You're a good man, Toro.'

Ray, because he's Ray, looks like he's gonna fucking blush. 'I do my best.'

The drive back isn't as weird as it could be -- or has been, sometimes. Like Pete's showboating high has worn off, like he remembers that there's something (Mikey isn't sure what) eating him up. Like they have nothing to say to each other, and haven't for the better part of two weeks. 

Tonight, Pete hums along to the radio music, taps his fingers on the steering wheel, stops at a gas station so they can buy sodas and those gross fake-fudge brownies that Andy would judge them for ever eating, and would probably kill them for bringing back to the loft. They get an extra one for Gerard because, as Pete says, _dude's convalescent. Andy can't get mad at us for looking after him._

Back in the car, while the streetlights strobe past, Mikey looks at Pete and wishes … well, mostly, that things could always be this easy. And then he feels stupid for wishing it.

'Admiring my stunning profile?' Pete teases, because apparently Mikey's been looking for too long, or at least doing a bad job of pretending like he wasn't looking.

'Watch out, Wentz. You might suffocate under that ego.'

Pete grins. 'Brutal, Mikeyway.' He nods to their bag of goods. 'Open my Coke for me?'

Mikey fishes one of the bottles out of the bag. It makes a satisfying hiss when he twists the cap off.

'Thanks.'

Pete's smile is so sincere and so … well, pretty, really, but it's always been pretty, so Mikey isn't sure why that seems like such a special detail right now.

'Hey Pete?'

'Mm?'

Mikey glances out his window, watching the leaves on palm trees undulate in a breeze he can't feel. 'Can we take a drive tomorrow?'

Pete's eyes snap to him, then back to the road. 'You wanna?'

'Yeah. Gerard doesn't have PT tomorrow and if you … aren't busy. I dunno, it'd be nice.'

That smile again, big and happy and unguarded. It makes the corners of Pete's eyes crinkle up. 'I thought you'd never ask.'

Mikey's burner phone goes off again, almost as soon as they get through the door. Heart in his throat, he ducks into the bathroom to fumble it open, hoping Pete doesn't ask. The text reads: _2 am_ and two addresses. Mikey wishes he could just be sick.

The dropoff keeps him out til 4:30. It's almost light by the time he gets back. 

Andy, at least, isn't awake, and if Pete is, he does what he's been doing and pretending not to be. Mikey crawls back into bed with Gerard and sleeps til almost noon. He doesn't know why he expects Pete to hold any of this against him, but he really does, and the feeling persists until he stumbles down to the kitchen where Gerard and Pete sit, talking. Pete's whole face brightens up when he sees Mikey.

'Morning, sunshine. Andy left you some breakfast, but we drank all the coffee.'

'I can make more.' Mikey passes them both, pausing to reach for Gerard's hand. 'We gotta redo your nails.'

Gerard smiles, soft and tired. 'Ready when you are.'

He and Pete keep chatting while Mikey deals with his food. When he's mostly finished with his coffee, Pete looks at him, fishing a set of keys from his pocket. 

'You still wanna take the lady for a spin?' He jangles the keychain enough for the kitchen to fill up, briefly, with a silvery sound. 

A fragile, lucent bubble swells in Mikey's chest. 'Yeah.'

'Whenever you're ready.'

Mikey clears away his plate and takes Gerard's too, even though Gerard insists that he can do it, and sincerely sounds vaguely annoyed about Mikey not believing him. Mikey kicks at his foot.

'Next time it's your turn.'

'Cute, Mikes.'

'Always.'

Gerard rolls his eyes, but follows them both out to the sitting room. 

'You can fuck around with the TV if you wanna,' Pete says, digging through his pile of blankets until he finds the remote. Then he shoves the blankets mostly out of the way so Gerard has somewhere to sit.

'Thanks.'

Mikey can tell from the sound of his voice that sitting around watching TV is the absolute last thing Gerard wants to do. He wishes he could fix it. 

'Have fun,' Gerard says as they walk towards the garage. 

That, at least, he sounds sincere about. It helps Mikey feel just a little less guilty.

***

They don't go back to the same places every time they go driving, but there are a limited number of actual places you _can_ go driving the way Pete likes to drive, so Mikey follows Pete's mostly-expert navigation back to the concrete canyon they're definitely not supposed to be in, and is almost surprised to find he doesn't really need the directions. 

Pete hops out to unhook the gate, and Mikey sweeps the car in and waits for him. As soon as Pete's back in the passenger seat and the door's shut some kind of demon of mischief, or lack of sleep, takes hold of Mikey, and he puts his foot down. Not flat down, god, there's still enough sleep in his system for him to feel anything like that's a sensible idea, but he doesn't wait for Pete to tell him, he just goes. 

He flirts with edging it towards the walls, the sloped sides of the runway that Pete called 'banking' and assured him was there to be driven on, but … the laws of physics are still yelling at him about 'not today' so he doesn't risk that either. 

Eventually the end of the long straight starts to curve away and Mikey eases the car back down to a standstill. 

Pete hasn't said anything, and that's weird, and worrying. 

'Well?' Mikey prompts him, after a beat. 'C'mon, Yoda, teach me your ways?'

Pete snorts. 'I'm not Yoda, dude. You want Patrick or Toro for the whole 'one with the car, you must be' zen bullshit.'

'Then what's up?' Mikey takes his hands off the wheel and folds them in his lap. 'You didn't even tell me off for missing that gear change.'

'The fact that you know you missed it means I don't need to tell you.' Pete twists in his seat so he can look at Mikey more directly. 'You're doing fine,' he says. 'But you always drive fine.'

'You said I drive like your dead grandma.'

'Whatever, dude, you have a license and you drive like it. You drive to the grocery store, remember? It's fine. You're a safe pair of hands.'

'O … kay.' 

Pete makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. 'I just don't get why you keep doing it if you don't like it, that's all.' His hands come up like he's trying to diagram what he means in the air between them. 'I thought maybe you just didn't know how to do it in a fun way, but … this just isn't ever gonna be fun for you, is it?'

'I'm sorry?' Mikey tries, but Pete doesn't look upset, he doesn't look mad. He just looks confused. 

'You don't have to come up with an excuse to get out of the loft, y'know.' Pete says this more softly; it pares something thin off Mikey's heart. Pete carries on: 'We can do something you'd actually enjoy. I know Andy and everyone said you shouldn't go out on your own, but like. We could go to a movie or something.'

Mikey almost shudders at the idea of being jammed into a dark space with a bunch of strangers, but he catches himself. 'I like this,' he reassures. 'I like the--' he waves his hand vaguely at the windshield, 'the sunshine, and stuff.'

_I like the way you smile at me when we break the speed limit._

Pete just keeps looking at him like he's waiting for something to make sense.

Mikey feels his own shoulders stiffen. 'Do you wanna stop?' 

Andy never actually told him what Pete's thing was, back when they were a racing crew, but it doesn't take a genius to guess that he drove, like really fucking drove, not with the way he watches Mikey's hands on the wheel. Maybe this whole thing just brings up bad memories for him, of whatever it was that made him stop. Maybe he's just doing it … to help? Something? Mikey's already seen a little too much evidence that Pete'll lay his life down to help out his friends. 

'We could … go to the park, or something?' he tries, grasping for memories of leisure activities you'd do in the daytime, things that don't involve hangovers or awkward goodbyes. 

'Wide open spaces, bad idea,' says Pete immediately. 

'Look, I'm just making suggestions. Like. If I'm really that bad a driver,' Mikey says, trying to joke; it still sounds awkward, but fuck, he's got to say something to break this stalemate before it ends with them going home and sitting on two different couches and Pete not talking again for days. 

Pete, thank fuck, thank whatever, takes Mikey's bad pass and runs with it. 'I was just trying to spare your feelings, dude,' he smirks. 'But fine, you still wanna play?'

Mikey wants to give Pete the keys and roll the windows down and … just go, maybe. Drive fast enough that no one can catch them. Drive to the ocean. Throw the burner phone in it. Make out on the hood of the car while the sun goes down and then, finally, go home to a place where Gee isn't in constant pain. 

He shifts, the burner phone jamming like a lump of rough lead against his hip. 

'C'mon,' teases Pete, rolling back to sit face-forward again, tugging at the strap of his seatbelt. 'Hit the loud pedal, Mikeyway.'

Mikey takes a breath and faces forward. The bend ahead of him is a sweeping right-hander and he does understand the theory of why the banking works. It would mean less changing gear, if he could do it. It would also mean stupid speeds, the kind of speed that makes Mikey's heart jump a little wrong when he thinks about it, let alone when he actually tries to do it. 

He revs the engine carefully and starts up again, letting the Bluebird roll, picking up speed cautiously. He's got space to … decide if he wants to. If he can. He's got a run-up on it before the corner comes and he has to make that choice. 

They're barrelling by the time crunch time comes, Mikey's foot actually is flat and Pete's got a wild look in his eyes when Mikey risks a sideways glance. So when the time comes to shift down, Mikey buries his foot, actually pushes it harder and doesn't turn the wheel as hard as he should -- and they're climbing. 

'Holy _shit_ \--' Pete whoops, breathless, flinging his hands up to press against the felt lining the ceiling. 'Dude--'

Mikey doesn't catch most of the rest of what he says, because his brain's in revolt and, thank god, his muscle memory for how to control a car comes online instead. He doesn't think he even breathes again until he's got the thing back onto the actual runway, back on a straight, down all the gears back to neutral. He twists the key in the ignition. 

The only reason he's not putting his head between his knees to hyperventilate is that the steering wheel is in the way. 

'Hey, you okay?' There's a shaky glee in Pete's voice but he's trying to school it into something quiet. A tentative touch to Mikey's shoulder makes him look up, and Pete doesn't quite snatch his hand back but he doesn't let it stay. 'Mikeyway, that was epic.'

'That was fucking stupid,' says Mikey, also shaky, unable to do anything about it, and not gleeful, not even a little bit. 'Don't let me do that again.'

Pete's hand finds the back of his neck, very very softly. Barely more than a pat. 'You wanna go home?'

The sun's setting, turning the blue-yellow sky haze into an orange-purple one. Mikey can't peel his fingers off the steering wheel. He doesn't know what he wants.

'Yeah, I guess.' 

'... want me to drive?'

Yes. 

'No, it's okay.' Mikey starts the engine again and turns the car back towards the dodgy gate with the cut hinges that let them get in. 'No making fun of my mirror checks.'

Pete's hand slides from Mikey's neck to his shoulder, and away. 'Promise,' he says, holding up his hand like he wants to pinky swear with Mikey -- too bad Mikey's hands are never coming off of ten and two again in his entire life. 'But seriously. That was great. You're a good driver, Mikeyway.'

'Just not a racer,' says Mikey. 

'No,' Pete agrees affably as they pull up so he can open the gate again. 'But that's okay. Not everyone has to be.'

***

The couch on the ground floor, the one that serves as a place to lounge while waiting for food, and as a storage place for the groceries while they're waiting to be put away, has three busted springs. Pete shifted all his bedding down there the night Patrick and Joe showed up and he just … hasn't gotten around to shifting back. 

Truth be told he likes the space. 

Or. 

No. 

He just … hearing the sound of other people breathing so close, even though he was shivering alone under his blankets, fucking sucked, okay? At least down here he's alone-alone, and he has more than three steps separating him from temptation. 

There used to be a time when, if Pete was not-sleeping, flipping through shitty channels of shitty late night TV, he wouldn't be alone for long. It never mattered how quiet he was, Patrick would always find him. _I'm a night owl_ , he'd say, shrugging, when Pete tried to urge him to save himself. _Go home, go to bed, get some fucking sleep, Stump._ And then they'd squabble silently over the remote, and end up watching something on mute, the colours flickering past Pete's eyes as they slowly, so fucking slowly, started to get heavy with his head against Patrick's shoulder. 

Pete's phone sits buried under his pillow. 

He has Patrick's number again, for the first time in two years. _In case_ , Joe said. 

He could call it. It wouldn't really upend anything; there's no law in the universe that says he can't try, and Patrick would probably be awake? And maybe they couldn't really talk, because Patrick's probably sharing a room with Joe, and Joe actually sleeps like a human, but. Fuck, it would be something? He could listen to Patrick breathe and wait for his soft, occasional words -- a thin kind of a sugar pill to counter the cravings that come with his memories. Who ever said a placebo effect wasn't just as good? 

He doesn't pull his phone out. He's got his laptop on the floor, screen tilted so he can see it from the couch, headphones plugged in but coiled up on the floor, so all he can hear is the faintest, tinniest approximation of the dialogue of the movie he's not really watching. His head feels like it's full of cotton and he can see himself like he's watching from somewhere outside his body, up and to the left maybe. 

It's chilly tonight, for no reason he can think of. So maybe it's just him. He pulls his knees up higher to keep his feet under the blankets. His back protests and busted spring number two digs into his hip, and he swears. Rolls over again, in awkward humps and twists because the couch is narrow and he wants to stay covered up on it, and the stupid thing makes awful, dying-camel noises underneath him, way louder than the movie. It almost covers the sound of the key in the lock of the downstairs entrance. 

When the door opens, though, that's plenty loud. Pete flinches and sits up in one jerking motion, and. 

The silhouette in the doorway is so thin as to be frightening, until it resolves itself into Mikeyway, cartoonishly stick-figured by the watery orange streetlight outside. And then he lets the door swing shut, and even the stick figure silhouette vanishes. The dark sighs with the faint lack of movement. 

'Late night?' Pete asks. 

It comes out meaner than he intended it, but he's tired and he can't sleep, and even though he has no actual fucking clue where Mikey's been, he still makes a few selfish guesses. All these late night excursions. The reasons why -- or the reasons he's imagining -- make Pete want to punch a wall, no matter how much he tries to pretend otherwise. 

Mikey whispers closer, materializing in the wavering aura of light thrown by Pete's laptop. He looks cyanotic, blue around the mouth and grey around the eyes. 

He shrugs, short and sharp and rehearsed. 'Couldn't sleep.'

Pete rolls his eyes, because no shit, Sherlock. 'Join the club,' he mutters. 

The flickering of the laptop screen catches his eye again. There's a long, silent moment, intruded only by the popcorn noise of movie gunfire through shitty earbuds. Mikey sighs. 

'Can I sit?'

Pete bites at his thumbnail, trying to swallow his anger. Because all of a sudden, he's really fucking angry. Angry at whoever booty-calls Mikey this late at night; angry that they treat him so badly that he comes back looking fragile and helpless and sad; angry that Mikey goes in the fucking first place; angry at himself for still being awake and having to fucking witness Schroedinger's walk of shame and collapse it into the irrevocable fact that it happened instead of it just being some imagined potential truth. 

'Sure.'

The couch makes a creaking sound, and everything moves, like a ship at sea, so that Pete feels how the cushions shift under Mikey's weight. He stares down at the laptop and knows he's telegraphing how pissy he is, but Mikey, because he's Mikey, doesn't press him on it. He just sits on the far end of the couch, pulling up his legs in such a way that he's all skinny and folded up against himself in the barely-any-space left over from Pete and his swaddled blankets. He picks at a scab on one knuckle -- idle, like he isn't really thinking about it, and Pete, in this particular too-brittle moment, vaguely hates that he can't not look at him, and that he doesn't know if that's Mikey's fault or not. 

He scrubs at one eye, feeling like he's going to itch his way out of his skin. 

'You should rest, at least,' he tries. 

Shades of a moment with Patrick, feet touching Pete's, headphones hooked around his neck, insisting he doesn't need to sleep. 

It slips away when Mikey says, 'Too tired,' his voice a little cold and a little sad and so un-Patrick-like that it's jarring. 

Pete huffs a chilly, monosyllabic sound -- because he gets it, he really does. 'Okay.'

He's not Mikey's mom. Neither is Toro. Or Andy. He's not going to badger the kid into sleeping. 

Mikey just shrugs again and doesn't say anything. Pete still can't help looking at him, sly glances out of the corner of his eye. Mikey, in the gloom, doesn't look like a kid. He looks Pete's age -- whatever that actually is, given he feels mummified by insomnia. Everything washes over in so much awkward quiet that Pete feels like he can't quite breathe. While he's running through a veritable litany of mean things he could say to make Mikey go away, and the laundry list of excuses he could dispense on his own behalf, Mikey says, in a pale, quiet voice: 

'I'm sorry.'

Some muscle spasms in the back of Pete's neck. 'What?'

Mikey chews at the frayed pink on his bottom lip. 'I'm interrupting your … downtime or whatever.'

'Downtime?' 

Pete's aware that he must sound like he's on a two-second delay, but what can he do? Hate-watching shit movies with the sound off at ass o'clock isn't downtime, it's -- he actually doesn't know. Gelid self-pity, maybe. Who gives a fuck. Pete's kind of downtime involves getting people riled up and leaving them wanting more -- this is something else entirely.

But Mikey soldiers on. 'I can't go to bed yet.' 

Pete waits for an explanation but apparently all he gets is that statement; apparently he can't stop staring, because it's three in the fucking morning, and here he is, with too much light in the crenelations of his brain, while he intuits something described by a picked-at scab and a chewed split in a lip, dark red in the dark. 

Awesome. 

If he could fucking sleep this all might stand a chance of making sense in the morning. The quiet itches right down into the space between his wristbones.

'I used to build blanket forts when I was a kid,' he blurts.

Mikey cuts him a look out of the corner of his eye. 'Yeah?'

'Like -- when I couldn't sleep.'

Mikey looks at him for so long that Pete wants to just get up and leave, despite the fact that he sleeps here. Then, finally: 

'Gerard used to tell me this … story. Like, pretend you can put your brain in a cool bath.' Mikey shrugs. 'It sounds better when he tells it. But it helped.'

Given all that Pete knows about Gerard, this is exactly the level of bizarre and creepy that he would expect from him. And even so, it's a nice thought -- or a calming one at any rate. Someone cupping water over all the places where he can feel his brain working. It defuses him just enough. 'That sounds nice,' he admits. 

Mikey nods.

Pete moves enough to make more room on the couch. Because Mikey won't ask and Pete knows better than to say anything too pointed outright (he knows what he'd do if someone did it to him; he'd get up and leave). 

'You can just chill here if you want.' 

Mikey doesn't say anything, and neither does Pete. He picks up the laptop off the floor and considers the movie a minute longer, then turns it off, finds Youtube and pulls up some shitty music video out of his 'recommended for you' bullshit sidebar, lets it autoplay next-ups, and offers Mikey an earbud. 

Mikey waves him away. Pete leaves them plugged in; the tiny, distant bleedthrough of the music is like listening to a party from another room -- it doesn't help exactly, but it doesn't irk either. Pete deliberately doesn't keep a count to the beat in his head. As such, a bleak feeling stretches out where something metronomic would be. But then -- the couch creaks again. 

Mikey lays himself out, his head resting against Pete's thigh. There's a breath, and then another breath, and then another. Easy. Steady. A better metronome than the broken up bass from the earbuds. 

Mikey doesn't make any sound at all when Pete lets his fingers brush the soft stretch of skin behind Mikey's ear, when he curls fine hair over his knuckles. In time, Mikey's breath evens out. Pete listens to that, and doesn't sleep, but drifts in a lull.

The sky turns thin and grey and feathery-lighted. The loft stairs creak -- they always creak when someone goes up or down. Pete really has no idea how Gerard or Mikey sleep through it, but here they are. Mikey's hand does nothing more than twitch against all the tangled bedding that Pete mostly moved out of the way and subsequently couldn't reach enough to pull over Mikey when he laid down.

Andy appears in the dim, arriving light.

Pete hunches a little. He knows what it must look like. Or. No, he doesn't, because he knows he looks like shit, and Mikey looks no better, and they're crammed onto a shitty couch and only one of them is sleeping, So, who knows what it looks like. 

Probably not good.

Andy sighs.

'Couldn't sleep,' Pete mumbles, like maybe that's not obvious.

'Try,' is all Andy says, and then he walks in close, moves some of the blankets around until Mikey's covered and safe, and he gets another one around Pete's shoulders. 

It helps, being this warm.

He falls asleep to the sounds of Andy milling around in the kitchen.

***

It's like Pete turns into another person at the races.

Glittery short-shorts and big smiles--and it's true, Mikey knew this before, has _witnessed this_ before, but it feels different today, on the heels of a night where he walked into the loft to find Pete underslept and miserable-looking. When Pete didn't buy whatever paper-thin lie Mikey didn't even really articulate, but also didn't really ask. All that just makes the Pete of 'right now' look effervescent and that much happier.

Mikey doesn't totally get it, reveling in the attention, but it makes him smile to watch Pete do it, kind of like the way it made him smile to see Pete's face all lit up after that one time that Mikey really convinced him to take the helm in the Bluebird.

All Mikey's shitty worries notwithstanding, it makes him feel a little better to come out and see things like this. It helps that Gerard, also, keeps answering Mikey's pointless texts. 

_pete's wearing red hotpants tonight_

_i know, m i saw before you left_

Mikey smiles at his phone. _just setting the scene. saporta won_

_the race or pete's hotpants?_

_both_

_figures._ This, appended with a smiling-alien emoji.

Mikey laughs.

Looking up, he catches sight of Saporta some several paces away, carrying on with Ray and Vicky, and neither Pete nor his hotpants are anywhere in their vicinity. It hollows out Mikey's chest a little, to see them talking. He wonders if Gabe ever told anyone -- but specifically Ray -- about their aborted hookup, if he ever said a word about how spun-out Mikey had been at the time. Sometimes, with the way Ray and Frank watch him, Mikey thinks Gabe really might have given them the heads up. 

More than once he wishes that he had. He knows that if enough people keep asking, his lies will eventually slip, or fail to add up. Or maybe someone might just wait for him to come home so they could pull a fucking intervention on him. And then he could confess, and fall asleep with his head in Pete's lap and not feel selfish.

His phone buzzes again. Gerard. 

_gonna go to sleep m, if i dont answer that's why_

_k_

He types out a little heart after, and wishes he were home to kiss Gerard's cheek. Night hasn't really arrived, not yet; the sky's still dusky. But all of a sudden, Mikey's so tired. He idles on the stupid hope that his burner phone won't go off tonight and maybe he'll just be able to sit up with Pete again, not really watching movies, and not suffocating under the weight of all the questions Pete's not asking and all the lies Mikey isn't saying out loud.

It's habit, to glance into odd corners when he's bored. Once upon a time, that's how he found things he wanted. Then it turned into watching out for things -- and people -- to avoid. Then it was people-watching, pure and simple and a little mean and a lot entertaining. 

Now? It's wary again. Mikey keeps to the edge of the crowd, trying to not get caught in the quicksand of it but apprehensive of being cut from the herd again. He wishes Andy were around, but no such luck. Probably fixing someone's car in … some way. Mikey should probably listen more, or help out more, given Andy's still putting them up in his place for free. Frank's not around either. Mikey hopes to fuck it's because he's found somewhere to sit -- the stubborn little shit won't take it easy on that knee no matter what Ray threatens him with. 

So Mikey has to wait, alone. He checks his phone for no good reason, suddenly unable to bear the thought of walking over to Ray and Gabe and Vicky. His phone, of course, is silent now that Gerard's gone to bed.

He glances around, looking for a friendly face, when he catches sight of Pete across the tarmac, in the pit near a cluster of cars. Shirtless and gorgeous and--

Furious. 

Mikey's heart flutters. He starts towards Pete without thinking much about it and gets close enough to see the bright lines of Pete's anger, hot in his eyes. He's growling in the face of some guy who looks too much like Leto to be coincidental. 

'--cking racing, okay?' Pete shows his teeth. 'Do you see a car here with my name on it? Am I the one with two pink slips I didn't own this morning sticking out of my back pocket? No, and your sack of shit brother should be fucking grateful because he knows for a fact I'd smoke his bony ass and he'd be down a car and what the fuck little reputation he has le--'

Which is about the moment Leto's brother slams Pete in the chest. Pete stumbles backwards, pivots to not actually hit the hood of a car, and trips on his own ankle. He goes down hard on his ass.

'Jared's rep is none of your business, Wentz. We just want to be very clear that you know the deal still stands, alright? You keep your pretty, slutty little bottom out of the driver's seat.' The guy leans down. 'Any driver's seat. Or all bets are off.'

Mikey has the distinct, stomach-dropping feeling that he's yelling at himself from three different directions, watching his body from around some other curve of spacetime as he darts the last few yards to the pit and brushes past the Leto threat to pull Pete to his feet again. Pete's palms smear blood on his -- red-brown, tacky-sticky and gritty with concrete dust and dirt. 

'I'm not. Driving,' Pete spits, shouldering in front of Mikey. 'Get out of my face. Tell your brother to go fuck himself.'

'Don't push him. It's not just you we're watching.' Leto -- the other Leto, whatever -- looks at Mikey then, and a cold, slushy feeling congeals in MIkey's gut at the way he smirks. 'Arrangements like ours only hold up if we both stick to the bargain, Wentz.'

Pete lurches forward, and Mikey has to frantically grab at him, catch his arm before he lets it fly, fist-first for this asshole. Leto 2.0 rolls his eyes. 

'Listen to your boytoy, Wentz.'

And Mikey grabs tighter, his knuckles white on Pete's arm -- and they both have to watch Leto saunter off. A stinging, vicious hate sours in the back of Mikey's throat, but he forces himself to exhale. He reaches for Pete's hands and turns them over, inspecting the damage on his palms.

He's still bleeding. More than just scrapes, then -- full on concrete burn. The shredded tracts well up red and red and red, little whitened strings of skin dangling. Grit and grime crust over the scrapes, sticky with blood. 

'We should get this cleaned up,' he says softly, because it's true, and because it's easier than asking anything about what the fuck just happened or who the fuck that was or what 'the deal' is.

Towards the far edge of the pit, there's an old outdoor faucet piped out of the concrete, the kind you hook a garden hose up to. Probably for spraying down cars -- or people, maybe, depending. Or that's what it used to be for; now it looks like it's just fallen into disuse. Mikey has to kick at it to snap the rust off the spigot, but he eventually manages to get the handle to twist. The spout pisses out a weak stream of reddish-then-clear water. He pulls Pete's hands under it and hopes it's enough to at least clean him a little bit. 

The water's cold, and Pete bites his lip, and leans awkwardly into Mikey because the tap is low to the ground. Mikey could let go. Pete could wash his hands himself. But Mikey doesn't and Pete doesn't try to get away. He just lets Mikey ease first one and then the other hand under the stream of water, moving them to try and get the sharp bits of grit loose from his skin without having to actually pick at them. 

It's not enough.

'Fuck, just. I'm gonna try and--' says Mikey, stupidly and not very helpfully, and he holds Pete's left hand as firmly as he can in one of his own and then tries to lever out the biggest bit of stone with his fingernail. Pete hisses. It's caught in the shredded wreck of skin, Mikey realises. 

'Sorry, sorry--'

Pete shakes his head. 'No, it's fine, just--'

He doesn't finish, so Mikey gets on with it, careful as he can be. He tries to not look at how Pete's jaw goes tight, but his fingers spasm every time Mikey clears away more lumps of grit. The cold water leaves both their hands pale and pruney, and Pete shivers, even though it's a warm night.

'We need some disinfectant,' says Mikey, because that's the correct thing to say. What he shouldn't say is, _why the fuck were you arguing with that asswipe_ , or, _here, wear my jacket_ , or, _can we just go home to bed? Please?_

Pete looks at him, all big eyes and smeared eyeliner and--

Fuck.

Mikey lets go of his hands. 

Pete looks away, back to the eddie of cars and bodies. 'We need Hurley.' 

***

'I think he's rattled,' says Pete, round Andy's kitchen bench, bandaids neatly in place over his palms. He gesticulates mostly at nothing, and paces, aggravated. 'I think I should start racing again.'

'I think you need to cool it.' Andy crosses his arms.

The downstairs is dark and cool, and the kitchen lights make an oasis that Mikey's not deliberately avoiding, even if he sticks to the edge of it. This is a Pete-and-Andy argument. He wishes he could be upstairs back to back with Gerard, trying to sleep and hoping his burner phone doesn't go off, but Pete said he needed to be here, as a witness. 

Mikey wasn't sure if he meant a witness to the thing with The Other Leto, or a witness to Pete and Andy duking it out, but whatever. Either or both, Pete asked, so here Mikey is. 

'He's fucking stacking races, and racketeering on it, and you know it,' Pete snaps. 'He's a petty crook with big ideas, he's not a mob boss, and I'm sick of lying down and fucking taking it just because--' Pete breaks off, making a garbled, frustrated noise. 'Fuck him. I'm done with it, I'm fucking done. Just once, someone needs to scare him; remind him he doesn't run this goddamn scene.'

The thing is? Mikey gets it. He watches Pete twitch and pace and bounce like he's hopped up on something more than sleep deprivation, more than red mist, and -- something in Mikey's gut agrees. Pete isn't wrong. It's not fucking _fair_. 

'Pete,' says Andy, and he sounds so fucking gentle. So much more gentle than Mikey's ever seen him be with Pete. 'You don't want to risk this. And not to make a joke or anything? But you do need to lie down. You need some sleep, dude. I'll take the couch, you have my bed tonight--'

'You know I'm right, though,' Pete says, and it's almost a plea. 'We gotta stand up to him, Andy. It's been too long. We have to _do_ something. Whatever the fuck he's doing, you know he's only cashing out because we're -- I'm -- not in it to fuck his shit up. '

Mikey wishes he'd been fucking brave enough to spit in Leto's face. The burner phone weighs hot and heavy in his pocket. Pete does another five pace lap of the kitchen, righteous and half-naked and Mikey wishes he was like Pete, just this once.

'We gotta stop treating him like fucking Voldemort. He only has power if people let him take it.'

'And he knows that,' says Andy. 'And enough people know what happened--' Mikey, again, for the thousandth time, wants to know 'what happened' but he's not dumb enough to ask right now, '--that if you throw down with him in public, he's gonna have to do something to keep the power he's got. Pete, you know it's a bad idea, and you have too much on the line.'

Pete's eyes flash, like he's waiting for Andy to say something else. Andy just rides it out. 

'Please, Pete. Just go to sleep.'

'I'll do it.' The words come out of nowhere, and ring in the air, and it takes Mikey a second to catch up with himself. To recognize his own voice.

Pete and Andy both look at him. 

'I'm not Pete,' Mikey breathes. 'I never said I wouldn't race.'

They stare, like they're waiting for a follow-up. Or for the punchline.

And Mikey really could laugh and play it off like a joke. From the mutual incredulity in the room, he knows they'd let him. But he thinks of Gerard upstairs, and of Andy who always makes him breakfast, and of Ray who gave a shit about him before anyone else did, and of Frank who'd fight for him, fucked up knee at all, and of Pete, who just …

He thinks of Leto, beckoning through a car window.

He wants to fucking not be a coward for once in his life.

'I mean, I know I'm not great, but you guys can teach me, right? I mean like, for real. I promise, I'll try, I'll practice. Maybe it'll mess him up, just enough to … I dunno. Make a difference?'

They're going to tell him no, he can feel it. He can see it, in how they cast about for something to say. And then they'll be back to square one and … and god help him, Mikey can't -- he _can't_ , the words stick in his throat -- tell them about the drugs, not like this, not under Andy's roof, fuck, but he can't just _sit here_. 

'Please.' The word scratches the back of his throat. 'I have to do something.'

Andy and Pete share a look. 

'Mikey--' Pete starts.

Mikey's shoulders stiffen, but Pete carries on. 

'You can't, Mikey.' Mikey opens his mouth to argue, and Pete talks over him, tense and on edge and angry at something that isn't Mikey. 'It can't be just you, not on anything bigger than a quarter mile. He. You need two precision drivers, first and second, or one to take first and the other to jack the course for anyone else, and unless Toro gets back in the game--'

'Yeah, no.' Andy says it so quickly and with so little hesitation that it almost startles. 'You want to give Leto a reason to notice him when Joe and Patrick are literally living in his house?'

Mikey watches Pete's jaw go tight, and he wishes, he wishes so much that any of this made sense, that he knew what Joe and Patrick had to do with it, that he could help _at all_. 

Andy sighs, tugging a hand through his hair. 'You need to sleep,' he tells Pete for the umpteenth time. 'We'll figure it out tomorrow.'

Pete huffs, furious, and storms out. Mikey hears the front door slam.

Andy blows out a breath. 'C'mon. Go rest. He'll be okay.'

Mikey isn't sure he believes it, but Andy sounds confident. And maybe he's lying -- but Mikey's so tired. He wants to at least believe it's true if Andy says so. 

Andy touches his elbow, as gentle as he was with Pete. 'Let's go upstairs.'

Mikey doesn't fight him.

****

Mikey crawls into bed with Gerard in boxers and his shirt, and falls asleep within twenty minutes.

Andy lays awake.

He has no idea what time it is when he hears Pete return, but he does hear him return, and for that he's grateful. Even when Pete's silhouette appears at the top of the stairs. Andy sighs and sits up to make room.

It's all that needs to happen. 

Pete, still smelling like sweat and exhaust and motor oil (Andy, sincerely, has no idea why), clambers into the bed. When they're both under the blankets, Pete curls into him like it's an instinct. Andy tucks one arm around his waist. 

'I hate this,' Pete mumbles, his words half-lost against Andy's shoulder.

Andy squeezes him, soft and gentle and fond and sorry. 'I know.'

Pete snuggles closer. Andy wouldn't tolerate this from most people, but it's Pete -- the reason he gives for tolerating anything Pete does -- so he just lets him rest. Eventually, he feels Pete's breath even out, and the quiet settles all around them.

In the soft grey of the very early morning, Andy wakes to find Pete, and Mikey, and Gerard all still asleep. And thank god, all told. None of them sleep enough.

He slips out of bed, careful of Pete, and makes his way down to the kitchen, filling the kettle for coffee and setting out two mugs -- one for him and one for Mikey, who, he's certain, will inevitably appear in the kitchen within the next ten minutes. 

Like clockwork, Mikey proves him right, wandering through the door and settling at the bar just as the first shafts of early morning light break through the windows. The kid always moves through the house like a ghost. Or like someone hiding from a ghost, maybe. Like he's scared that if he makes too much noise, some monster will notice him and see him for what he is in the very early hours of the day -- muzzy, and tired, and a little on edge. 

He blinks at Andy when Andy passes him a full mug. 

'Thanks.'

Andy just nods. 'You feeling better?'

He knows the answer before Mikey even shrugs, but he does wait patiently for that shrug, and for how Mikey averts his eyes, studying the countertop instead of looking at him.

'I …' he hesitates, and Andy can hear him scuff one heel against the crossbar of his stool. 'Is Pete gonna be okay?'

'He'll cool off.'

'Why …' 

The air grows dense.

Mikey chews his lip. Swallows his unfinished question and says instead: 'I just want to help.'

'Look, Mikey … ' Andy exhales a heavy breath. ' _Pete_ thinks throwing Leto off his game will help.'

'And you don't?'

Andy thinks of sitting in a waiting room where the fluorescent lights were too bright. He thinks of how Patrick looked, eyes red-ringed and mouth pressed thin. 

'I think Leto's more trouble than he's worth.'

Mikey gives him a long, desperate look, and then goes back to staring at the bartop. Time dilates in the silence, the coffee still steaming. Mikey's fingers twitch against the mug. 

'I fucking hate this.'

He says it so softly that the color of the words bloom more clearly than their sound -- thin and fragile and uncurling silver mist. Andy watches how Mikey rests on his elbows, his shoulders sharp and curved forward, hunching away from something that isn't there. An anticipated reprimand, maybe. And looking at him, a realization comes to light, and stings in Andy's chest like heartbreak:

Mikey and Gerard must have fought so hard to claw their way out of all the shadows in their past. There was probably a point -- a not so terribly distant one -- in Mikey's life when ducking your head and staying out of some ganglord's way, no matter the cost, was probably the only thing _to_ do, if you wanted to make it through any given day. 

What a gutpunch, then, to surface in an ostensibly safer place and realize that, even here, vindictive, petty, selfish nobodies can still intimidate the people you care about. And there's nothing you can do about it.

_I fucking hate this._

Pete said as much last night. 

Mikey sips his coffee and scuffs his heel again, quiet in the morning's clear, cool arrival. The arc of his spine articulated in the arch of brittle, fragile determination. A hope, not so much to do with Leto specifically, but everything to do with the shadows, and the murk, and a remembered cruelty.

Andy exhales through his nose. 

'You really wanna do it?'

'I -- what?' 

'Drive. Race. You really want to?'

Mikey gives him this wide-eyed, pale look. 'Yeah. If it'll help.'

Andy has serious doubts about that. 'Then we'll teach you. Or. Someone will. Pete can't, not if Leto already thinks he's trying to get back in the game.'

'I … okay. Okay thanks. Um.'

'Um?'

'Can you show me?'

Andy huffs. 'Not if you want to win anything. I take care of what's under the hood so other people can wreck it.' 

'Oh.'

'Look, we'll figure it out. We should talk what car you're driving -- you feel good about the Bluebird?'

Mikey's shoulders stiffen. 'I guess, but … '

'But?'

'I was thinking about it last night.'

'About picking a car?' Andy tries not to sound incredulous, but he'd be hard pressed to believe that Mikey could describe the technical differences between a Bluebird, an Aston Martin Vanquish, and a Ford F-150.

Still, Mikey nods. 'I. I mean, I just. I know Ray says it's not the _best_ car, but I was thinking I could drive the Trans Am.'

Andy stares so long that Mikey winces. 

'So, I shouldn't?' he ventures. 

'I--' Andy tries to think of a way to say _no you absolutely fucking shouldn't, that car is a wreck waiting to happen_ while not crushing all of Mikey's hopes in one fell swoop. 'It's … the Bluebird might be easier to deal with, is all. You already know it.'

'I guess.'

'You guess, but?'

Mikey shrugs. 'It's Gee's car. I … I just want to learn how to handle it. For him.'

Andy knows that there's a point in every healthy friendship where one friend has to put their foot down for the other friend's sake. He _doesn't_ know when he started disregarding the necessity of said point and letting people do whatever the fuck they felt like instead, but he blames Pete. He downs the rest of his coffee.

'Okay.'

'Wait,' Mikey visibly perks up. 'Really?'

'Yes, really. The car's still at Toro's right?'

Mikey nods. 

'Then I guess we need to give him a call.'

***

It's really unlikely that Patrick is going to actually die here, all cooped up in Toro's place, but three weeks in and his lizard-brain is starting to talk over any sound reasoning. 

_You could just fucking come with me to Hurley's,_ Joe told him once, and sure. That's true. He could. But then he'd have to deal with Pete and whatever the fuck Pete's doing with two guys who almost got him killed, and somehow all of that just makes Patrick's chest seize up. 

Even though he dragged Joe out here, just to make sure Pete was safe.

Even though he's not really sure why they're still here, except that being here somehow feels better than being far away, in Anaheim, waiting to hear the worst. 

And, Patrick's bad moods notwithstanding, Joe lights up here, happy and comfortable, and Patrick feels a little guilty for having taken him away from all this and for fighting with him so much because they only had each other and … it's hard to do anything but fight, really. Or it was hard for him. 

Whatever.

So here he is, settled on the bench in Toro's garage, wondering if a twentieth walk to the corner store will help him dispel the itchy feeling between his shoulder blades. 

And then Toro appears, popping his head through the door. 

'Hey! I figured you were out here.'

Patrick rolls his shoulders. 'Hey.'

'Andy's coming over with Mikey,' Ray says, and Patrick is sincerely impressed at how entirely amiable he sounds, delivering this news. 'He wants to talk to us.'

'Mikey?'

'Well, yeah, but also Andy.'

Patrick sometimes wishes he weren't a so-obviously guarded person. He has no reason to be bothered by Andy's presence, and Ray knows it. Which means that when he says _about what_ , and sounds more than a little aloof, Ray also knows that that has nothing to do with Andy. Ray, by contrast, answers with panache, and Patrick can see so very clearly why Andy, Joe, Frank, and even Pete, all like him. 

'Mikey wants to give driving a try. Andy figured we could help.'

'Driving -- _racing_?'

Ray nods, his soft curls whispering to their own rhythm. 'Yeah.'

Patrick almost snaps that he has nothing to offer -- or at least nothing that Joe and Ray couldn't tell the guy. But he catches the words against the backs of his teeth. He's not looking to have another fight with Joe tonight -- provided Joe actually stays home tonight. He's taken up with Frank, the two of them going off to some dive bar of Frank's choosing, with many promises from Joe to Ray that he'll look after Frank and his hurt knee. 

Patrick exhales through his nose. 'They're on their way?'

'Yeah.'

'I'll be right in.'

***

Joe, for one, would like everyone to know that he loves Andy, and that he thinks this Mikey dude is charming in a weird, quiet kind of way, and even still this whole thing sounds like a terrible idea. 

They're all sitting in Toro's living room, and Joe personally feels that he deserves some credit for schooling his expression into something approaching neutral while Andy explains -- or tries to explain -- what the fuck the logic is here. Because there doesn't seem to be much and it's pretty obvious that Mikey is diving in the deep end. 

'Mikes,' Toro sounds so sincerely soft and worried, 'you sure you really want to … ?'

He doesn't finish, so Frank fills in for him:

'Like, live your dreams or whatever, but really? Mikey, you don't even like to break 60 on the fucking highway.'

So that's promising.

Mikey withers a little. 'I just. I want to try.'

'Why?' Patrick, this time. He sounds nothing short of acerbic and Joe sincerely considers hitting him in the fucking mouth because. Well, because a lot of reasons. Most days he feels like he could write a 2000-page codex on brotherly love and how it's really just a test of spirit. And how you can love someone from the depths of your soul and still, frequently, want to hit them in the fucking mouth.

Mikey bristles, for Mikey. Joe has yet to see him display more than about 75% of a full human emotion, but he glares at Patrick.

Andy leans in. 'Because he wants to try,' he says to Patrick pointedly. 'Everyone starts racing somewhere, Patrick, don't be a dick.'

'You're not a driver,' says Patrick to Mikey, ignoring Andy and folding his arms. 'I'm not seeing how this'll really jam up Leto's plans.'

'He drives fine,' says Andy. 'Pete's been out with him a few times, he never came back saying anything except that he needs practice.' He folds his arms too, and waits until Patrick actually, mulishly, looks at him. 'Once upon a time you weren't a driver either.'

Joe is pretty sure Patrick wants to say something about that time being when he was _sixteen_ , but he's also pretty sure that if Patrick pushes much further, Andy, Frank, and maybe even Ray, who's clearly trying to play Switzerland here, will push back. Joe looks between them, trying to work out what the fuck they're not saying, because Ray's expression is worried as fuck, like a St. Bernard with clinical anxiety, and Frank's chewing on his lip, and Andy's gaze is just a little too steady and Joe may not have been around for the last little while but Andy's lying expressions haven't changed. 

There's a fraught moment. 

Joe looks around, and starts ticking off the options with a sinking feeling in his gut.

If Mikey doesn't have the chops to race but won't be talked out of it … they're gonna have to help him. Pete's not getting anywhere near a race-ready car again if anyone in the room has anything to do with it, Joe can taste that in the air with no difficulty. Frank's out, he's driving the one automatic transmission car in Toro's garage and bitching about it being a gutless wonder non-stop; his knee can't handle anything with a clutch right now. Gerard can't turn a steering wheel -- he can barely pick up a coffee cup. And that's it, for the serious drivers in the room, or not in the room as the case may be. 

Joe doesn't know how Ray drives, but he knows he doesn't race -- he's like Andy, he's a mechanic to the bones. Either of them probably could show Mikey a trick or two, but it wouldn't be his best option. 

So it's Patrick. 

The obvious option is Patrick. And just as obvious: that option is not. Going. To work. Patrick gets bitchy when he gets angry (and he's been angry all three weeks they've been here) and Mikey -- well, Joe doesn't know him that well. Their friendly interactions at Andy's notwithstanding, he gets the sense that there's something a little bit brittle under that disaffected exterior. He's got sleepless, blue-ringed eyes, and a mouth that goes sharp and bloodless when he's tired. And Joe has seen him tired more often than not. 

He has no idea what it would take to make Mikey crack, but putting him in a car with Patrick while Patrick's angry about who the fuck knows what?

Yeah, no.

Even now, Patrick's looking at Mikey like he's sizing up what exact words he needs to sling to draw blood. And Joe's pretty sure, knowing Patrick, that it's not just about Mikey's driving prowess or lack thereof. 

So it can't be Patrick. Which leaves Joe, who hasn't raced seriously in years. He's a _mechanic_ , for god's sake, but … well, fuck. Fucking -- he looks at Mikey, and the fraction of an expression on his face. His shut-in, defiant body language. Everyone else argues around him, because he won't fucking participate -- so by now he must feel like they've all forgotten that he's still in the room. 

He needs some fucking help. And if no one else is gonna do it, Joe will … fall on the sword or whatever. Take one for the team. 

Joe opens his mouth to volunteer, just as Andy says, '--and he wants to use the Trans Am,' 

Frank gives Andy a look, doesn't miss a beat. 'No, he fucking doesn't.'

Joe shuts his mouth again, because what?

'What Trans Am?' Patrick asks slowly. 

Frank throws his head back to stare at the ceiling in the universal gesture for _give me fucking strength,_ and then looks back. 'It's a disaster.'

Andy rolls his eyes. 'Cool it with the melodrama.' 

'Are you fucking kidding me?' Frank snaps. 'Gerard like … god, I don't know, he must have done some kind of blood ritual and soulbonded the thing, there's literally no other explanation for how it still runs. It's an eldritch abomination, Hurley. We didn't want Gerard to drive the thing, and you wanna put _Mikey_ in it?'

Andy looks over at Ray, who's shaking his head slightly. They … commune somehow. Joe watches the way their faces move and can't decipher it. 

'What's the matter?' he asks Frank, instead. 'Why the hell is a Trans Am a problem? I mean, sure, they're kind of clunky and I wouldn't fucking race one, but … '

'It's not a Trans Am, it's like Frankenstein's fucking monster.' Frank clearly has no interest in sparing anyone any melodrama. Joe kind of loves him. 'I mean. I think the chassis is mostly Trans Am, but fuck knows about the rest of it.' He takes a breath, rolls the tension out of his shoulders. Like it's an effort. 'The engine's good,' he concedes. 'Toro fixed it up.'

'It's the one in the garage,' Ray talks over Frank's huff. 

Joe squints. He's spent a bit of time down in Toro's garage lately, it's a way to kill time and to help out, to say thank you for the way Ray and Frank just let him and Patrick come crash in their house without even a moment's hesitation. 

'Your project car?' Joe asks. 'Dude, you can't race that, you'll ruin it, it's way too fancy. You must have sunk a shit-ton into the bodywork alone--'

'No,' says Ray patiently. 'The other one.'

'The _parts car_?' Patrick looks incredulous, and Joe doesn't even know what he's talking about for a moment and then he remembers the like, weird lump half under a dust sheet that sits next to Ray's gleaming project car. 'You want him to race that thing?'

'That's not my fucking parts car.' Ray sounds downright offended. 'I wouldn't put those parts in my car.'

Patrick stares at him, like he's waiting for a punchline, or for the other shoe to drop, or the universe to spin ninety degrees and click into a dimension where this makes sense. 'You're fucking serious,' he says. 'Jesus christ, _that's_ what Gerard was driving?'

Ray shrugs. 'He's good, what can I say? He's really fucking good.'

'Bullshit. He never won a single thing in that wreck. He can't have.' Patrick's voice does that weird thing that Joe recognizes. A strangled disbelief. 'Does that thing even start?'

'Of course it starts, you think I'd let Gerard go out on the grid with a car that didn't start?'

'The rest of it's basically held together with spit and duct-tape, though,' Frank cuts in, rueful. 'I mean, we tried, but Gerard wouldn't let us touch the bodywork. Apparently it's art, or something.'

'What bodywork?' Patrick spits. 'It's fucking chassis rust from bumper to bumper, Iero.'

Mikey physically flinches, which is the most visible reaction he's had for this whole conversation. 

Patrick, because he clearly knows how to fucking read a room, keeps going. 'I'm amazed that thing didn't vibrate to pieces on the start line, oh my god. This is insane. It's not safe.'

'You haven't even looked at it properly,' says Andy, but he's on the defensive. Joe would suspect strongly that Andy has at some point looked at this Trans Am and has doubts of his own. 

' _I'll_ look at it,' Joe offers, getting to his feet. 'I mean, if the engine's fine, then cool but. I can check the suspension and the brakes and shit. I might be able to help?'

Ray's expression eloquently says he would like to come out and help too but he's worried that if he leaves there won't be anyone left to help the police identify the bodies. Patrick looks like he's about to go thermonuclear and Andy's squaring up to him like a tomcat, Mikey dead silent beside him, and Frank fidgets like he wants to wade in as well. 

'I need your help,' Joe growls, and grabs Patrick by the wrist, basically dragging him out of the room. 

Patrick doesn't make it easy -- he doesn't quite resist, but he makes Joe physically move him, the sulky brat. One day, someone will recognise how much shit Joe puts up with on a regular basis for this guy. He loves Patrick, he really fucking does, but sometimes he wonders why. 

He doesn't let Patrick go until they're in the garage. 

'C'mon, where is this thing?' He flips the lightswitch. 

Fluorescent lights flicker to life. Patrick stalks to one corner, past Ray's lovely, gleaming project car, and grabs at the dust-sheet that half hides something else. Flicks it onto the floor. 

Joe can't help but stare.

Because frankly? The thing is gross, dusty, and grease-smeared. A mouldering cardboard box of loose parts sits on the roof. The car has a crease in one bumper, and, yeah, plenty of telltale flaky brown patches intersticed with an … erratic … paintjob. The passenger side mirror clearly took a knock at some point, and. Well. Assuming Toro's telling the truth and it really does start, someone could probably drive it just fine, but not someone like Mikey. Not someone who's never been on a track before. Especially not if Ray and Frank's incredulity is to be believed -- and Joe really doesn't think those guys fuck around. Not when it comes to this kid and his brother. 

Whatever, though. Whatever. 

The mirror's fixable. The rust could just be superficial. Joe moves around Patrick, who's not being very responsive, pops the hood, and exhales. Finally, some gleaming chrome, some evidence of quality and care. 

But. But even this pretty engine is embedded in … the rest of this piece of shit car. 

Any illusions he had of self-sacrifice go up in smoke. This thing is a nightmare, Frank was right.

He lets the hood drop with a minor clang and looks at Patrick, who just stands where he is, a hard look in his eyes. 

'This is all you, dude,' Joe breathes, half-whispering because. Because? He isn't really sure, it's not like anyone in the fucking house is going to hear him. 'I'm good, but I'm not this good, not if someone has to show him how to handle this thing.'

Patrick closes his eyes and breathes in hard through his nose, like he's trying to stay calm. And that's good, Joe's happy that he wants to stay calm and isn't gonna go off about this, because the only person around for him to go off on is Joe. And sure, he's learned to take that heat over and over again, for two fucking years, but that doesn't mean he likes it. 

Plus, Patrick needs to think about that 'going off on people' thing as a whole. 

'If you don't help him,' -- Joe steps closer -- 'he's gonna die in a fireball in this thing. And you know that.'

'This is a stupid fucking idea,' Patrick says viciously under his breath. 'He's an idiot and Andy's a bigger idiot for not shutting him down right at the start.'

'Jesus Christ, Patrick,' Joe says, resisting the urge to tug at his own hair in frustration. 'We all just agreed that it's stupid, okay? Even Mikey fucking knows it's stupid, were you looking at him in there?'

'So why are we even still talking about this?'

'Because he wants to do it,' Joe shrugs. 'Fuck it, Patrick, maybe he needs one race to get it out of his system. C'mon, dude, like you never did anything stupid. I know you don't like the guy, but--'

'I never said I didn't like him,' Patrick growls.

'Oh, so you were just pulling the stay-off-my-turf shit to look cute?'

'Fuck off. I just don't … I don't know him, okay? All I know is that this shit is really fucking big. Someone got _shot_ for who the hell knows what, and Pete's in the middle of it. And, what--' Patrick grits his teeth. 'He's so fucking stupid.'

Joe's pretty sure that the 'he' in this instance is Pete, not Mikey, and that only aggravates him more. 'So you're gonna take your shit out on a dude who didn't do anything to deserve it?'

Patrick cuts him a vicious look. 'I'm not taking it out on anyone. I'm saying I don't know him. None of us know him, apparently, because no one saw a driveby coming, but everyone's acting like we all signed a fucking blood pact.'

'What the hell else do you want? Like, congratu-fucking-lations, you're right, it's a bad idea and it's too much and it's too soon, okay? But this is already happening, so feel free to get over yourself.' They aren't yelling, but that somehow makes it worse. Joe just wants it to stop. He's so tired. Tired of fighting, most of all, but tired in general and tired of the kind of drama that has a capital D. The kind that kept him away from his friends for years and still hasn't really let up. 'What else are you going to do? Argue Andy to death over it? Let Mikey drive completely green? Frank's too fucked up to help him, and Pete … can't help him, and I can, and I will if I have to, but we both know that this is not my kind of car, dude.'

Patrick looks away. 

Joe prods his foot with a toe. 'You know how to drive this monster, don't even play. What are you gonna do, man? C'mon.'

'Fine. I'll run Drivers' Ed for a guy who's never seen a starting line before. Sure.'

Joe has to resist the urge to rub at his temples, where he swears a vein is about to pop and start throbbing like in a cartoon. 'Could you just. Not be an ass about it? He's just a kid.'

'He's my age,' Patrick snaps. 'Jesus. I think he might be older than me. Since when is he suddenly a kid, if I'm not a kid? We're all adults here, aren't we?'

'Then act like a fucking adult, Patrick. I don't care. It goes both ways.'

Patrick glares at him. Joe has known him a long, long time -- long enough, at this point, that he can't imagine what his life would be like without him. And as far as he's concerned Patrick has been forty-five since day one. Except for times like these when he's a fucking petulant toddler.

He's about to say as much, but the tension goes out of Patrick's shoulders, enough that he doesn't look so embattled. 

'Fine.' 

Dull and bitter; the kind of vitriol that doesn't really have much life to it.

What. Fucking. Ever. 

Joe counts off all the reasons he's earned every single fucking drink he gets with Frank, because he might not be able to put up with this level of … Patrick being Patrick ... if he didn't. 

He knows Patrick's right. It's a bullshit idea, and a dangerous one at that, and Patrick is nothing if not an aggressive shit when he's right -- and it never matters. Because Patrick being right about things has never, in Joe's experience, ever turned the tide of what actually happens to them.

'I'll see you inside whenever,' he snaps, and turns on his heel. 

By the time he makes it back into the living room and pointedly sits himself down in one of Toro's obscenely comfortable ancient velour grandma's-parlour style armchairs, he's not sure if Patrick is even gonna follow him in. Maybe he's going to stand in the garage and brood, who knows, although that's more Pete's style. 

And then, he hears an engine revving. 

Toro's head snaps up, so fast his curls bounce, and Frank says, half laughing, half worried, 'Oh fuck, here we go.'

Joe's half out of his seat but Andy holds a hand out. 

'Let him go. He won't crash the thing, at least. Maybe he's just putting it through its paces.'

That's a pretty fucking optimistic take, all things considered, but Mikey, sitting beside Andy, still looks almost catatonic, staring at his phone. So Joe keeps his mouth shut. The kid clearly doesn't need any more stress. 

And yes, fuck you Patrick, he is a fucking kid, okay? 

And yes, so is Patrick, and honestly? 

So is Joe. They were all kids, at some point, and he isn't sure when they had to grow up so fast, but they did, and they weren't ready, and now here he is, playing the adult, because apparently Patrick fucking can't. Melodramatic driving off in the middle of the fucking night is a case in point. 

The engine sound diminishes, and there's a long stretch of silence, or maybe a short stretch of silence -- Joe isn't sure -- before the rumble returns, humming for just a bit before Patrick kills the ignition.

He stomps his way back through Toro's back door and tosses the Trans Am's keys, weird fluffy kitten-head keyring thing and all, at Mikey, who startles up from his phone and catches them in a reflexive gesture.

'You've got your work cut out for you.' It's the first real thing Patrick has said anything to Mikey all night, and he … could be kinder. Mikey just looks at him and Patrick's jaw goes tight. 'But whatever. It's your funeral.'

If that's all he's going to say Joe's going to wring his fucking neck. 

So it's good when Patrick sighs and adds, 'I … maybe have a couple suggestions for you though.'


	5. Chapter 5

***

There are a lot of reasons why driving the Trans Am, Mikey realizes, isn't like driving his own car, or the Bluebird. 

The first: Gerard's keys have a lot of shit dangling off them. It feels like a ridiculous complaint, it really does. A lot of people's keys have shit on them. That's normal. But Gerard's stupid Mousecat and other odds and ends bump Mikey's knee, high up, on the inside, every time the car turns. And he startles. 

Every. 

Single. 

Time.

He grips the steering wheel, feeling guilty for the way he makes the car jump or lurch oe creak. Because Christ, does it creak. It's like the Industrial Revolution is locked up in the trunk; the whole thing slews when he corners like there are loose bricks rattling in the chassis. It groans every time he hits the brakes too hard, too soon. 

And he figures all this out on the drive to the fucking lot. 

So here he is, feeling shivery and sick out in the too-sharp morning light, while Patrick unhooks another gate with another broken padlock. 

And he knows it's stupid. He really, really knows. And maybe it wouldn't be so bad if Pete were here, grinning at him. Teasing, gently, because he's so godawful at this. Lighting up the morning with something less miserable than the cruel sunshine.

Pete, at least, is good at making Mikey feel less like a fuckup. 

But Pete isn't here. It's Patrick, sliding back into the passenger seat, not grinning at all. Not doing anything really, except staring out at the pavement with this look on his face like he's taking fucking notes on a test that Mikey's obviously going to fail. 

'Take her around the circuit once, lemme see how you're driving,' he says, in a voice void of any intonation. 

This lot, like all the other lots, is bare and dead and empty. The ugly, yellowish concrete and the dusty tarmac feel like they're already too hot, just to look at it. Mikey sees heat waves quaver off the asphalt -- or he thinks he does. 

Maybe he's just tired. 

He grips the steering wheel and puts his foot down, because there's no sense in hesitating. The car buckles her way into action. But Patrick doesn't grin at Mikey like they're sharing a secret, like cutting class to hang out for kicks. He watches the road, he watches Mikey -- flicks of his eyes to Mikey's hands on the wheel, the stick shift.

His mouth goes a little bit thinner at every corner taken too slow. At every abrupt screech of … something. The axle, the suspension. Who knows.

By the time they stop again, Mikey's certain he won't be able to let go of the steering wheel. Or that, if he does, his hands are going to shake in a way he can't control.

'You can't lean into the brakes so soon.' Patrick still sounds … some type of way. Or no type of way. Whatever. 'It's too heavy for that.'

Mikey blows out a breath and nods. It's too hard to look at Patrick dead on. 'Okay.' 

In that same, flat voice, Patrick instructs, 'Take it on a straightaway and try just easing on the brakes. You need to get used to them. It's not just an on-off button, you can … finesse it a little, y'know?'

Mikey can feel his gaze hit the side of his face like a torchlight. Like Patrick's dissecting something; peeling Mikey's skin back with a cool interest -- or a vague irritability over not being able to find what he's looking for. 

Mikey guns the engine and tries not to think of Pete.

When they lurch to a halt again, more or less a quarter mile from where they started, Patrick exhales through his nose. 

'The circuit, one more time.'

It's a miserable three hours, all told. Mikey wants to … something. Hide. Cry. Go back home and curl up next to Gerard and never leave him ever again. But he's just stuck in this fucking car with Patrick, who's making it abundantly clear that he thinks this is a bad idea. Mikey scrubs at one eye.

At least Pete made him want to be brave.

'I'm tired,' he says, his voice as fragile as old paper. 

He tells himself that Patrick doesn't notice. 

Patrick just nods. 'Take the curve on the way to the gate.'

Mikey feels something twist through the back of his neck. Fear maybe. Or exhaustion. Or the miserable coupling of the two, which mostly just adds up to too much cortisol and muscle tics and the sudden urge to round on Patrick and fucking yell at him. 

A sharp thing, clotted in his throat. 

Look straight ahead. And go.

He downshifts as smooth as he can for a corner, and wants Patrick to fucking say something, even if it's to criticize. Silence just fills the car, even though the _car_ won't stop rattling.

He shifts back up. 

Patrick's eyebrow quirks. Mikey's brain informs him that if he threw the wheel over hard right here he'd roll the Trans Am. He feels a little hysterical.

But, by some miracle, he guides the car into the camber on the curve and flattens his foot for the straight. 

For one minute, it feels like they're nothing but light, moving too fast, but moving with spectacular precision. He pulls the car to a gentle halt, just by the gate, and his surprise at himself catches up to him one beat later.

A stretch of silence.

'Hey. That was good,' says Patrick abruptly. 

Surprise. He's surprised that it was good.

Maybe Mikey should be mad about that. But he can't help the smile that twitches his lips. 

And then he pendulums right back into wanting to cry.

It's pathetic, really, to be so hungry for praise. 

***

Mikey's hands are stiff at ten and two, even when they stop in front of Toro's house.

It takes every single thing in Patrick to make him not slam the Trans Am's passenger door once he climbs out of the car. He'd like for someone to know how furious he is, he just … knows better than to put that on Mikey. It's not Mikey's fault.

So he stalks towards the garage instead, trying to breathe.

It's just. It's hard not to be fucking irate when everyone you care about is being an idiot.

He cuts in front of the idling car to get the garage door -- Toro's place was last renovated probably when it actually did belong to his grandma, and it absolutely does not have an automatic garage door. The thing shrieks and clatters as Patrick pulls it up. 

His stomach twists up, imagining Toro asking how it went.

How it went is: Mikey Way is gonna get himself killed out on the fucking track.

And he notices Andy's truck, parked just a bit down the block. Fantastic. The full Greek chorus is presumably waiting inside, then. 

Patrick waits for Mikey to park and shut the garage up again so they can walk in together. Mikey gives him another one of those surprised, cringing-puppy looks, and okay, Patrick knows he's been a bitch lately but seriously. Is he Cruella de Vil now?

He holds the door open and lets Mikey go first. It's only polite, but it means he has to come in to the sight of Pete tearing his eyes off Mikey to look up at Patrick. Toro lurks against the back wall of the kitchen like Gerard's looming shadow. _Gerard_ just holds his arm too close, like it's still stiff. His red, red hair is starting to show dark at the roots. 

Iero sits at the kitchen table, futzing aimlessly with something that looks like a spark plug, clearly for the sake of having something to do with his hands. 

And Joe and Andy? They look at Patrick like they're expecting a clear and detailed report. 

Patrick shrugs. 'We need a little bit of time to get used to the car.'

Honestly, it's not untrue. It's just far, far from the totality of the situation. What they need is someone who isn't scared out of his mind doing this in the first place. Or they need a better car. Or they need … anything that isn't this particular situation. 

Andy just nods, and Patrick can tell from his face that he knows it's a lie. And that he's going to roll with it.

'Makes sense,' he says, while Gerard moves to effectively weld himself to Mikey, hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder, pretending his arm doesn't hurt him.

Patrick kind of wants to hit him. Him. Andy. Gerard. Both of them.

But everyone's so delicate about Gerard, and the worst part of that is that Patrick gets it. 

Too-harsh lights flash in his head. The back of an ambulance, someone crying that flat, dull cry, that comes when there's no energy left for anything more. The way a person cries when it hurts and it won't stop hurting and the only thing to say is _I'm so fucking scared_. 

Yeah, Patrick gets it. You can only live through that shit once. 

So it would be really fucking great if someone could give him one good reason why everyone he's ever cared about is suddenly all-in on a pair of … ex-junkie fuckheads from wherever. 

But instead, Pete looks at Mikey with a grin on his face and says, _How'd it go, champ?_ , and Mikey shrugs and twitches that tiny little smile of his. A smile that might look shy or coy, under any other circumstance -- and that, right now, makes Pete's grin burn even brighter by contrast. 

Mikey just looks at Pete like Pete's cheer -- ever freely-given, no matter the cost to Pete's own heart -- really matters to him. Like he has any fucking idea what he's taking in the first place.

'Everyone lived,' Mikey mumbles. 

It isn't funny, but Pete claps him on the shoulder anyway. 

And Patrick abruptly and unfairly hates Mikey for the things Pete might be willing to do for his sake. He hates him for being shy and smiling at Pete and he hates him for being Pete's friend, the way Patrick was, in a past that he can't bring back.

Once upon a time Pete was as hollow-eyed and tender about his limbs as Gerard is now. Once upon a time, it was Pete's deathwish trackside stupidity that made Patrick snappy and impatient and angry. Close to the end of that 'once upon a time', Pete tried grinning that same sunbright grin at Patrick with a mouth full of blood while someone strapped him to a fucking gurney.

And Patrick has never, not for a moment, forgotten what that looked like in blazing orange streetlights, turning the mess trickling from the corner of Pete's mouth livid black, just like he hasn't forgotten the Penrose pretzel that was all that was left of Pete's car. 

That's the thing about Pete. He's ride or die and it terrifies Patrick how literal that is. Mikey has no fucking idea what Pete's giving him. The inevitable blood in someone's mouth.

'You guys sit,' Ray instructs.

Mikey and Gerard go without argument, with Pete in tow. Iero follows, while Ray moves around the kitchen, setting a kettle to boil. Because Ray, Patrick's learning, isn't so different from Andy. Moved by some impulse to take care of everyone, even if he's gentler and more patient about it than Andy.

Patrick just stares in the direction of the living room and can't bring himself to move. He can see Pete's shadow, cast just over the threshold.

A different memory, then. 

Sitting on the end of Andy's couch with Pete, trying to … work out what the fuck to say to make things better this time. Or, barring better, at least less shitty. Trying to get Pete to see where he wasn't being fair to whoever'd gotten cast as the other half of this week's star-crossing melodrama, until he figured out there was no point to that game, and stopped trying to do anything other than listen until Pete talked himself out. 

He drove his own car to the hospital, tailing the ambulance, he remembers that too. Crystal fucking clear. He hadn't hit another fucking car at full speed. 

From the other side of the island, Joe's just looking at him, like he knows exactly what's happening in Patrick's head.

'I'm gonna lie down,' is the best Patrick can manage. 

Joe doesn't say anything to stop him. Neither does Andy. They just let him go down the hall, and he bristles at the sounds of their voices at his back, striking up conversation with Ray.

It isn't Mikey's fault. 

It wasn't Patrick's fault either. 

***

Practice means Mikey has to climb into the Trans Am again. And again. And again. He's getting really super good at controlling the visceral wave of nausea he felt the first time he had to open the wrong door -- Gerard's door -- but he's not sure he's getting any better at all at actually driving it, even after a solid week of Patrick's measured, tight criticism and trying, really fucking trying, to improve. 

Something cold and concrete drops into his stomach on Friday morning when Patrick's clipped directions have him going along streets he knows, til they get to a place Mikey's been to before. With Pete. 

The not-really-banking of the abandoned underpass seems like it curves in above him, like it's gonna reach up and then crush down, fall on him like a breaking wave. 

'I want to see you actually take a hard turn in this thing,' says Patrick, when Mikey gives him a confused look. 'You need a decent amount of run-off space, so, I figured here was the best bet.'

Mikey swallows and shrugs. 'I've cornered before,' he says, as if that's what Patrick's point is. He doesn't know who he's lying to, himself or Patrick, but he knows neither of them believe him. He knows what Patrick's asking for. 

Patrick just looks at him. 'Yeah, and I want to see you do it again.'

It's on the tip of Mikey's tongue to ask why, and he won't let it out, because it's pointless. He just turns to look ahead, the stupid heavy dangly keyfob brushing his hand, and squares the car up against the runaway length of the straightaway. He pushes his foot down as much as he can make himself. 

It's like swimming in treacle, or mud, or, fuck, like tar, the Trans Am picks up so slow. It aches to watch the speedometer climb. This thing isn't the Bluebird. When she's up to speed it's like having a bridle on an avalanche -- Mikey's got no control, none at all he'd swear. He catches his bottom lip between his teeth and the bitter iron taste of blood blooms in his mouth and his ankle aches from the clutch as he shifts up, up, up--

The corner creeps up. Mikey's heart gets louder than the engine note. 

He's gonna turn. He is. He can see the brink point of the line in front of him, he can see the moment of curvature, and when he gets there it's shivering, timeless, a diapause - but his hands won't move, he can't pull the wheel round, he _can't_. 

It doesn't fucking matter that this isn't the Bluebird, he couldn't have done this in the Bluebird either, he can't do this at all, his heart is about to burst his ribs at this point, kicking through the skin of him. Patrick makes this aborted twitch beside him that Mikey only catches as movement in his blurry peripheral vision -- but it's enough to galvanise him. He jerks the wheel sideways, the car slews, Patrick makes some kind of a fucking noise beside Mikey and Jesus Christ, there's a concrete wall coming up way too fast. Mikey jerks the wheel again, shoves his foot on the brake, and the Trans Am eel-twists under him so hard it's like the chassis is straining against some shearing force, and starts to fishtail. 

The next moment Mikey can breathe, or think, or see again, the car's stopped, facing back down the runway the way it came, and his hands are sweaty on the wheel. 

Very quietly, Patrick says, 'You have to lean into it sooner. It's a heavy car.' He's not mad. He's not even reproachful. He's careful, like Mikey's made of porcelain. 

Mikey might cry. Instead he grits his teeth and nods, stiff as a mannequin. 

'Don't brake too soon, either. You have to feel for when you're really out of the turn, and slow into it.'

What exactly there is to feel for, Mikey doesn't know. Where he's supposed to feel it? He doesn't know that either. It's like he's had something amputated, some limb everyone else apparently has and he doesn't, like they're telling him to reach with a hand that's missing or see with an eye that isn't there. 

Put aside the fact that Mikey didn't stop because he was smoothly coming out of the corner -- he stopped because, by some miracle, he managed to wrestle the car out of oversteer before they literally hit a wall. He nearly fucking killed them both and Patrick's just looking at him like he expects him to get back on the terrifying iron horse again. 

So. He exhales hard and forces his hands back on the wheel and straightens everything up, does a U turn and then off they go again. 

The curve looms. Mikey twists at the wheel but he can't help his foot easing, and the juggernaut slows without its impetus. He hates that he feels exponentially better the more they asymptote away from the red line. He hates that Patrick doesn't even sigh beyond the tiniest whistle of outward breath. 

'Don't let up,' he says, and it makes Mikey kind of fucking mad that Patrick talks to him like he's a spooked horse even if he knows he's acting like one. 'You can't take it at full speed, but you don't need so much give.'

They haven't come to a stop, they made it around the corner already and now they're on the straight again and Mikey can't even imagine putting his foot flat to the floor for this and yet here's Patrick going 'okay corners don't have to be slow', it's … it's unreal. He tightens his grip on the steering wheel though because … whatever. Fine. 

'It'll shake a little,' says Patrick. 'That's okay. It's that kind of car.'

Mikey's brain is screaming at him that they're all going to die, but he lets his foot stay where it is on the accelerator. He's holding the steering wheel so tight by the time they stop, it hurts to let it go. 

Patrick takes a deep breath, and touches Mikey lightly on the shoulder. 'Let me show you.' Again, with the spooked-horse bullshit -- he touches Mikey like he's trying to give him a kind of situational awareness, stop him panicking, remind him there are other things in the world besides the sucking grey expanse of concrete and the shimmering heat outside. Mikey, shaky, jerks away from the faux-sympathy or Stockholm Syndrome or whatever it is that colours Patrick's touch and slides out of the car, furious with himself. 

Maybe Patrick's touch was soft but the look he throws in Mikey's direction through the windshield as he moves into the driver's seat, squirming over the center console, is furious. Until they lock eyes and then there's something else for a second. 

Mikey reaches for the passenger door and slides himself back into the car like a hypnotised cobra, unable to break that eyecontact. Then Patrick grabs for the keys and then he's driving, and. 

And well. 

He's nothing like Pete. 

It's a comparison Mikey knows he has to stop making.

Patrick's face is set in a grim line, jaw square, eyes on the … the horizon, or whatever the fuck passes for it in this urban excuse for a canyon, and he runs the car into a turn smooth as silk, sweet and liquid and perfect, frictionless on an infinite plane. Mikey's blood runs cold because fuck, they're going to die, they're actually going to die, that's not a cornering manoeuvre, that's a catastrophic loss of fucking traction and they're gonna drift straight into the concrete -- but they don't. That twitching roiling moment of wrestling the car, that always happens to Mikey, never comes -- the engine growls its way through its ascending song and Patrick changes gears without a single graunching, tooth-gnashing noise and they're out the other side. 

He doesn't even look at Mikey. There isn't even a single second of 'look at me' there. He's not showing off, he's just. Driving. Pulling the best out of the car, and Mikey didn't think it had a 'best' to give -- he knew it could win races, but that's because Gerard was driving it and Gerard loves this fucking car, the same way Pete loves to show off. 

Patrick drives the car like he resents it, and he doesn't even react when Mikey mutters 'fuck me' in sheer disbelief under his breath as they sweep into the fourth corner that completes the wing of the abandoned cloverleaf. He just … drives. Like he breathes, or like he argues, or like he looks at Pete -- like it's a natural state of being. 

Patrick pulls up and turns the key. The engine cuts. 

Mikey knows he's staring, but Patrick isn't looking at him when he says, 'You don't have to go that fast yet.' The faintest touch of red stains the tips of his ears. 

'I … don't think I can go that fast ever,' says Mikey, honesty punched out of him by the adrenaline of speed without doom. 

He wants to ask how the fuck. How the fuck can Patrick know this car so well? How the fuck did he know how to handle it when it's made of bits and pieces and spit and hope wrapped up in an ugly as shit classic chassis. Frank told Mikey once it didn't count as a car so much as a patchwork quilt. So how the fuck did Patrick break the laws of physics like that? It's like he has some kind of special arrangement with the coefficient of friction.

And why did he go away when he and Pete and the rest of them could be running the fucking scene here, driving like that. 

Even Gerard had to like, learn. And even in the Trans Am he doesn't drive like he's Robert Johnson and the car's got steel strings. But Patrick just. Wrung sweet fucking blues out of an engine that never gave Mikey anything but braying dischords. 

'It's a bitch of a car,' Patrick says, still not making eye contact, 'but you can use that to your advantage.'

Mikey blinks. 

Patrick looks up and blinks right back at him. The red of his ears runs faintly into his cheeks, too. He flicks his eyes back to the shimmering concrete out the windshield in a hurry, stares fixedly out at the vanishing point. 'It'll be heavier than anything else out there, so you won't pick up as fast, but once you're in it, the inertia will carry you. You just have to pay attention to the track. Lean into things ahead of time.'

High school physics is … mostly a blur from repeated bad chemical decisions during lunch hours, but Mikey's pretty sure that's not how inertia works. 

'You just have to trust it,' Patrick says, and he sounds very quiet, still not really looking at Mikey. He's just watching nothing out the windshield. 

Mikey wonders if that's a lesson -- trusting -- that Patrick found hard to learn. 

The words hang weird and sad in the air between them, and Patrick's hands smooth over the peeling faux leather of the steering wheel. He misses this, Mikey realises. Pete's so obviously chewing the scenery because he wants to be back in the driver's seat, but it never occurred to Mikey that Patrick might be in the same situation. Which. Maybe that's because they've known each other for really barely more than a few hours of actual direct one-on-one interaction. But it's so clear in this dusty-honey-coloured moment.

Longing, draped atop some kind of heavy something that Mikey can't read. 

Patrick just keeps looking at the steering wheel.

'We should get back,' Mikey says softly. He doesn't offer to drive. 

When they pull up at Hurley's, Patrick doesn't get out. He doesn't seem mad but he doesn't seem happy, either. He just says, 'Tell Andy I'll catch up with him later.'

'Okay. Um,' Mikey manages, intelligibly. 

Patrick actually looks at him, for once. 

'Thanks?' 

'Sure,' says Patrick, shrugging. Again. Not mad. Not even unfriendly, so Mikey tries to let it feel positive, but he's still heavy and sad and post-adrenaline-hungover when he gets out and drags his feet to the door and then up the steps inside til he can sprawl out in bed next to Gerard, who's trying to pretend he wasn't, like, waiting. 

A set of chewed ragged fingernails land in Mikey's hair. Gerard aimlessly pets him for a moment and then says, 'How was it?'

'I dunno. Fine.'

Gerard pulls him into as much of a hug as his PT's strict instructions will allow. 'You don't have to do this, Mikes.'

'Everyone keeps saying that.'

'Well, it's true.'

Mikey wants to point out that it doesn't matter if it's true or not. What matters is that Pete keeps threatening to do things that might get him hurt, and that Gerard insists on taking a different route to the hospital every week to get to PT and is pretending it's just because he wants to see more of the city. 

What matters is that Andy and Ray and Frank are fucking sheltering Mikey and Gerard, and Mikey's still doing bad things for worse people and lying about it to everyone. 

So maybe Gerard's right, maybe everyone's right, and Mikey doesn't have to do this. But he feels like he should, he feels like he owes someone, everyone, something. Everything.

'I want to, Gee. I need to do this.'

Gerard gives him a squeeze. 'Okay.'

Mikey wishes it weren't so easy to talk to his brother. 

***

'You good?' says Joe when Patrick walks into Toro's living room.

Patrick has to resist the urge to kick the antimacassar-ed old lady sofa next to him out of sheer fucking frustration. Joe looks fidgety, and Patrick can't blame him, because he personally wants to crawl out of his fucking skin. 

He throws himself onto the couch rather than offer it pointless violence. 

'He's gonna kill himself.'

The eyeroll is audible in Joe's voice when he says, 'You say that on a daily basis, and it has yet to happen.' 

It takes everything in Patrick not to snarl at him. 

'That's not a car,' he says. 'It's a fucking murder weapon. We can't let him do this.' And he knows he says that on a daily basis too, but the feeling, the certainty of it, isn't going away. 

Joe sighs. 'Tell it to Hurley. Or Frank, maybe he can talk Mikey out of it. '

Patrick pinches the bridge of his nose, because that's part of the problem. No one can stop Mikey, not forcibly -- all they can do is try to talk him out of it, or hope he scares enough that he changes his mind about the car, about the whole fucking thing. 

'Pete's full of shit,' he snaps, because he's suddenly angry and there's no one in particular to blame, except for Pete, who encourages Mikey and looks at him like he means something and god, god it makes Patrick furious that Pete still looks at timebombs like Mikey that way, as if they should be allowed space in his heart. 'He's okay if he's, like, driving in a suburb, but he's scared -- really scared -- out on a track.'

'He's just gonna do it anyway,' Joe says. But he says it heavy and sick-sounding, like he's had this argument with himself already. 'All we can do is help him -- either help him realise it's a fucking dumb idea or help him not kill himself trying it.'

'He's got a death wish, maybe,' says Patrick. It occurred to him when Mikey was trying to flatten his foot to the floor and his fear was fighting him -- that Mikey looked like he was trying to drown himself. He can tell Joe is … annoyed with him, maybe, for still going on about this, but Joe wasn't in the fucking car. 

'It's not like you weren't ever scared when you first tried this.' Joe doesn't sound overly kind, but the words are still a little hollow. 

'So that's what I should go with when he spins out in front of another car? "It's okay, Mikey, we're all scared sometimes?"'

Joe rolls his eyes.

Patrick rolls his own right back, and doesn't say anything about how he's not ever looking to watch that happen to anyone ever again. He doesn't say that when it all goes to shit he'll probably have to live with some sense that it's his fault, for not doing … something … differently. He doesn't have to say it. Not to Joe, who came with him when he fucking left the first time. 

Joe's mouth twists. No. Patrick doesn't have to tell Joe a damn thing. 

'I'll ... fuck it. I can try and teach him some control,' Patrick tries, 'but … ' He's been trying, is the thing. 

'That thing handles like a pig, huh?' Joe offers.

Patrick deflates a little. 'Yeah.'

Joe leans into Patrick's shoulder, and doesn't say anything else. It's enough. And he was right the first time, in Toro's garage that night -- this is on Patrick. It'll fuck everyone up if Mikey can't handle it for real, if he really does get hurt. Joe was right about Toro and Iero -- they're all in on this, on Mikey, on Gerard ostensibly, on all of it. And Andy's Andy, which means he cares because he's a better person than Patrick, probably. And Pete … Patrick can't even touch that one. Because if Pete gives a fuck (and he almost certainly does, even though Patrick hasn't really witnessed it), well … 

Patrick has such a fucking headache. 

'Where's everyone else?' he asks, instead of thinking about it any more. He needs a fucking drink. 

'I dunno. Out? Well, Ray's doing some work in the garage, but he might as well be out. He's y'know. In the zone. Iero is actually out, I guess.'

All Patrick wants to know is if they're going come interrogate him.

He must look miserable, because Joe gets off the couch and offers Patrick his hand. 'C'mon. Frank showed me this place with passable beer.'

'It's 3 pm.'

Joe shakes his head, like Patrick's missed the point. 'It's 5 o'clock somewhere. C'mon Stump, let's go.'

Patrick lets Joe lead him to the door. 

***

The drinks don't make everything better -- not by a long shot. But they take the edge off. Off Patrick's aggravation. And his every other thing.

And there's something slightly reassuring about sitting in a dingy-but-charming little bar, side by side with Joe. Patrick can't do anything about Mikey and his stupid fucking decisions, but he at least can do better by his best fucking friend, and Joe's giving him the chance, even after two years of almost nothing but fighting. Patrick is suddenly so exhausted and so, so grateful.

'Lemme buy the first round?' he offers. 

Joe answers with a faint smile, and Patrick flags down the bartender and asks after a draft that he knows Joe likes. Because he _does_ pay attention, even if he sucks at for-real-out-loud apologies. Joe smiles just a little bit wider, forgiving some transgression with the same silent language. 

Some days, Patrick hopes that someone better than him will come along and see what he knows to be intrinsically true. Joe's good in a way that most people aren't.

'I was fucking around in Toro's garage while you were out,' Joe says, his electric tension easing away. 'Dude has some … weird shit. Like shit I didn't think you could even find anymore. Bits of like … y'know that car from A Clockwork Orange? The Probe 16? He's got bodywork from something that I swear to god is that fucking car, and like. I dunno, all kinds of crap.'

Patrick laughs a little. The bartender returns with their drinks.

'I don't think he's even being like a pretentious dick about it,' Joe adds. 'He's just. It's like a labor of love for him.'

Patrick arches one eyebrow. 'Kinda like it is for you.'

'Or you,' Joe quips, but he's still smiling. 

And it's a bit easier after that. The conversation, Joe's quiet, ebullient cheer. It's pretty obvious how much he missed being here (being _home_ , if Patrick's being honest) and his general good mood, his outright and unflagging willingness to forgive Patrick for a lot of things that other people wouldn't put up with -- it makes Patrick notice that he missed being here too.

Patrick manages to set the thought of Mikey on a racetrack aside. 

By the time they wend their way home, he bumps his shoulder against Joe's. 

'Thank you,' he mumbles, quiet against the deepening night.

Joe gets his arm around Patrick's shoulders, easy and happy. 'No problem.' He gives Patrick a squeeze. 'But you need to chill more.'

It's true, Patrick knows. Not that this keeps him from rolling his eyes.

'I'm not doing so bad right now.'

That makes Joe laugh. 'You're doing great, Tiny.'

'Fuck off.'

He doesn't mean it though. He couldn't really mean it, not ever. He hopes Joe knows that, and he wishes Pete knew that, or that he could say it and know that Pete would believe him. Joe just laughs again, his arm falling away from Patrick's shoulders. And maybe Patrick's bad at apologizing, but he can come to _this_ conclusion, at least:

If he can't apologize, the next best thing is to keep Mikey safe. The best way to care -- about Joe, and Pete, and Andy; and, fuck it, Iero and Toro, too -- is to keep the guy alive, stupid decisions or no.

'Joe?'

'Hm?'

'I just want him to be okay.'

Joe gives him a glance. 'Mikey?'

'Yeah.'

'I know.'

Joe doesn't bother with _he will be_. He's above pointless promises. Patrick loves that about him too. They walk the rest of the way back without saying much, buoyed up by one another. 

***

The thing about the driving lessons is that they're starting to feel more like drowning lessons -- and it makes Patrick wish he could impart something to Mikey. Confidence, maybe. 

Because, sure, Patrick was sort of terrified the first time he tried racing. But _his_ instinct was 'so just do it until you're good enough that it's not scary'. 

Mikey though? 

Mikey's just scared. And it hurts to watch him put himself through the wringer. But more than that, seeing him fold into himself every time, every damn time, means Patrick's alarm bells never stop going off, and it's exhausting.

Patrick knows what it's like out on the track. Everyone there but Mikey is gonna be there for the rush, for the freefall, for the adrenal slam in your veins you get when someone cuts too close to you and you make the right move in a split second decision your body makes for you. 

A race is a race but it's also a game of chicken -- you win by winning but you also win by crossing the line intact, and that means some people have to lose, and -- fuck, it's a bullshit move, but Patrick's _seen_ people squeeze each other, create disappearing wedges and force other drivers into them, to scare them off accelerating, to drive them off the road, and Mikey just ….

At best, he'll be a hazard with no instinct for how to move. 

At worst? Well.

Patrick feels bad for losing his patience but he can't help snapping at Mikey. He knows he shouldn't. He knows it isn't helping. But Mikey cringes when the needle on the speedometer ticks past 80; Mikey flinches and does things that'll get him hurt. And Patrick has to swallow ten thousand other, angrier, more desperate words and snap instead, because he can't let Mikey get away with doing this the wrong way.

And Mikey flinches again, and guides the car to a hitching halt. He doesn't look at Patrick, but he doesn't have to. 

'Just--' Patrick resists the urge to sneer. 'Forget it. You're fine. Pick up again and we'll do the handbrake turn again, okay?'

Mikey's fingers are long and strange around the steering wheel. Bloodless knuckles, because he's holding on too tight. And he keeps on staring ahead, like there's something to divine either in the dust on the pavement or in the matte blare of the afternoon light. 

'Sure.'

He sits up a little, his shoulders straightening, however briefly.

He has a tendency to hunch, Patrick's noticed. Like he isn't thinking about it. Like his ribs hurt, or they might get hurt, or they got hurt a very long time ago, and no one ever really convinced him they'd get better. Patrick wonders what has to happen to scare a person like that.

And, entirely without effort, his mind supplies: _not very much_. 

Or, everything all at once, depending on how you look at it.

He turns his attention back to the lot while the engine grumbles. They glide through a series of four actually passable, if too fucking slow and too fucking step-by-step, handbrake turns. Something graunches underneath the car, though, and that's not Mikey; that's an actual fault, possibly in the transmission.

To his credit, Mikey actually clearly registers the noise, too. Against the sudden extra worry that the car's falling apart (a perennial, frequently recurring fucking anxiety), Patrick can see the fact that slowly but surely Mikey _is_ getting a feel for the stupid thing. 

'We should take this junkheap back to Hurley, see if he can do anything about that,' he says, after they swap places for the drive home. 

'Okay,' Mikey answers.

Affectless. Textbook Mikey, as Patrick's starting to learn. 

'Plus I wanna say hi to Andy,' Patrick adds. 

Mikey takes this in stride. He's already texting, probably Gerard, although he's frowning down at his phone like he doesn't want to read whatever the last message he got was.

Patrick wants to say something like 'hey buddy you did good today,' but the words shrivel up and die on his tongue. He's not Mikey's Little League coach. And no matter how much he wants to reassure Mikey, he won't lie. So he just drives them back to Andy's place and the silence feels long and oppressive and awkward.

When they pull the car into Andy's garage, Patrick wishes his stomach didn't swoop. He also wishes it didn't swoop a second time -- with relief -- when they walk into the Andy's place to find that Pete's not there. 

He's aware that he's basically treating Toro's house like the fucking DMZ in his personal melodrama, but it's so much easier to wait for Andy to come to Ray's to talk than it is to go to the loft and have to see … anyone who lives there. But they do actually need to get under the Trans Am and see what made that ugly noise. And Andy has a little inspection pit dug out, so they won't have to fuck around with jacks and put Frank, as the skinniest, on a dolly to get under the stupid low-slung thing to figure out what's wrong.

So. 

Here he is. For logistical reasons only.

'Patrick.'

Andy strides out of the kitchen. 

Patrick manages a steady, 'hey' -- and Mikey flees to the loft without a word.

'There's something up with the car's transmission,' Patrick carries on, when Andy looks at him like he expects an explanation. 'And Toro doesn't have a pit at his place.'

Andy just nods. 'I'm in the middle of some shit, but come sit in the kitchen if you want. We'll get to it.'

Patrick knows it's as much of an olive branch as he's going to get. And in all honesty, he's grateful for it--

\--right up until Pete walks in. 

***

Mikey's sprawled mostly over Gerard's lap on the futon upstairs but he can see the side door and a sliver of the kitchen's castoff light through the railings barring the loft from the steps. So he's got a great view of Pete walking in and freezing just as he's about to disappear through the kitchen doorway. 

Patrick's _Hey, Pete_ drifts up to the loft, slightly muted. 

It's stilted, like he had to translate the words from some other language, maybe fucking Klingon, before he could line them up on his tongue and push them out. 

Pete doesn't say anything, not a single thing, for a moment and then he says 'Hi,' in an abrupt, electric shock of sound that does absolutely nothing to soften the spectacular, thick, palpable awkwardness in the air. 

Mikey buries his face in Gerard's thigh because he cannot witness this -- insofar as hearing counts as witnessing -- without wanting to throw up. He hates people airing their fucking dirty laundry in public.

No one ever actually said Pete and Patrick were a thing but Mikey can read between the lines, okay? He doesn't need other clues, he doesn't even really need Andy's circumspect half-explanations of whatever happened _before_. He doesn't need any of it when it's apparent that they can't even be in the same room.

He listens to Andy talking very calmly in all the awkward pauses. If he focuses just on that, it's not so bad.

Gerard rests his good arm over Mikey's shoulder, and Mikey feels something cording and flexing. The specific mechanism of tendons and muscle moving, while Gerard fiddles with his phone. Downstairs, the conversation drifts to the Trans Am, and to Joe, and Ray, putting all this work into it. He hears his name once or twice and the brief sound of it breathes an echo in his chest. 

But every few beats, Patrick starts to talk, or Pete does, and their voices snag; thoughts aborted, statements lost. Tripping over each other. They don't yell, but the air grows cold and crystalline. Little blades.

And Mikey flinches.

So much for pretending not to listen.

Gerard pets at his hair. 'Mikes.'

He says it like he already knows what kind of weird ordeal Mikey's having about hearing all this; about how it hurts, hearing it and thinking of how Pete must look; about feeling guilty for dragging everyone into his stupid decisions. 

Mikey's so tired, and he loves Gerard so much his heart could burst.

'It's okay,' Gerard promises, very gently. 'People hurt each other sometimes. And then they learn to forgive each other.'

Clearly Gerard was listening, too.

Still, Mikey feels small and helpless. He wonders why and how Gerard can believe in things like that; hurting, forgiving, the whole shebang. He thinks of Andy, and Ray, and--

'Mikey.' Gerard strokes at his hair, firmer now. Pushes it back from Mikey's forehead.

Mikey gives him a dolorous look. 

Gerard doesn't flinch. 'It's not your fault.'

Except Patrick and Pete are downstairs having a … not argument, and maybe it has something to do with Mikey, and maybe it doesn't. Either way, it feels bad.

He curls closer and Gerard lets him, setting his phone aside to snuggle down onto the futon with Mikey.

'Who're you talking to?' Mikey mumbles.

It's warm like this. Gerard smells vaguely like he hasn't showered in the last few days, but Mikey's never minded that before. And he knows showering still hurts him, and that it's enough work that Gerard gets tired after. 

'I'm talking to you,' Gerard tells him, and Mikey feels his smile more than he really sees it.

'I meant who were you texting, asshole.'

'Ray.'

Mikey wishes he could give Gerard every good thing in the world. As it stands, all he has to offer is:

'You didn't have to stop for me.'

Gerard's ribs rise and fall with the measure of his breath. There's a strange grace to it. And again, Mikey feels small.

'I wanted to,' Gerard promises.

Mikey doesn't know what to say to that, so he doesn't bother saying anything. He curls close, letting Gerard pet his hair. It eases the tension corded down the column of his spine. For some uncounted number of minutes, it almost feels okay. 

And then his burner phone goes off.

Mikey startles so hard he almost knocks Gerard's shoulder, his phone rattling in his pocket. He probably _does_ knock Gerard's shoulder, given that Gerard makes a sharp, hissing sound. 

Limbs get tangled in blankets and apologies in the scramble to sit up.

'Shit, Gee. Sorry. I'm sorry--'

And he is, he really is, because Gerard's got that bloodless look. The one that means he's really hurting, and it's going to take time to go away -- and Mikey can't do anything except fumble for his phone and twist to keep it out of Gerard's sight while anxiety seizes and thunders in his chest. 

'You okay?' Gerard breathes.

He has one hand, warm, at Mikey's back, and _Mikey_ should be the one asking that question. But here he is, staring at an address and a pickup time on a phone that isn't really his, while Gerard waits for an answer, patient, and worried, and loving, and every other thing Mikey doesn't deserve.

'I'm fine.' Mikey stuffs the phone back in his pocket. 'Date later.'

Gerard's silence speaks volumes, but he lets Mikey curl up close again. This close, everything smells like bedding and dryer sheets and Mikey wishes he could build a kingdom out of this. Cotton clouds and cotton spires; a high-up place, always sundrenched, and always with Gerard. Safe.

'I'm sorry,' he mumbles. 

'Sorry?'

'I banged your shoulder.'

Gerard curls gentle fingers and tucks Mikey's hair behind his ear. He doesn't say anything for so long that Mikey starts to wonder if Gerard thinks he's gross. Then: 

'It's okay, Mikes.'

Mikey breathes out. They don't say anything else. 

***

The pickup is earlier than usual. Midnight. It means Mikey has to spend more time lying, in the long run.

He really does doze off, because he's exhausted, and because it's warm, and soft, and quiet near Gerard.

Small mercies: he sleeps through Patrick leaving. 

But he sleeps through Gerard getting up, too. When he startles awake, he's colder, and it's darker, and he's alone on the futon. He fumbles for his phone, heart seizing because he thinks for one gutsick moment that he slept too long. But little glowing digits assure him it's only 10 pm, so. Plenty of time to get up and shuffle around, pretending like he's getting ready to go somewhere and do something he wants to do.

The stairs creak on his way down. 

'Mikey?'

He halts, caught in the kitchen doorway's parallelogram of light. Gerard watches him from the counter, his hurt arm cradled carefully against his torso.

If Mikey were a better person, maybe he wouldn't just look at his feet. 

'Yeah?'

Fabric whispers as Gerard slips off his stool, his feet tapping soft, sticky sounds against the clean wood floor. He walks a bit closer, and it's all Mikey can do not to flinch with guilt. 

'Do you need anything?' 

Mikey wonders where Andy and Pete are. He just shakes his head. 'I'm okay.'

The loft settles in too much silence, and Gerard's gaze rests like feathered worry against the side of Mikey's face. When he takes the last few steps to reach for Mikey's hand, Mikey sucks in a thin, miserable breath.

'You know you can tell me anything, right?' Gerard murmurs. 

Mikey tries to pull away, but Gerard holds on. Firm, because his good arm lets him do that. He thumbs once over Mikey's knuckles and then lets him go. 

'I know,' Mikey mutters, hugging himself. 

He does make himself look Gerard in the eye as he says it though. Gerard watches him, the hollows of his cheeks just a little too sunken; his eyes a little too big. In some other life, Mikey could do something to fix those things. He could do something to make it better.

In this life--

'Okay,' Gerard breathes.

And Mikey goes before they can say anything else about it. 

In the end, the handover is so routine that Mikey gets through it without a hitch, even though he has the distinct feeling that he's watching himself -- watching the whole world, really -- from the bottom of a lake. The night slides by like shapes floating on the surface. 

He blinks when he finds himself outside the door to Andy's loft again, then blinks one more time when he's sitting on the edge of the futon. 

Pete, he thinks. Pete was downstairs, set up on that creaky old couch. Mikey's throat aches a little. Maybe they said something to each other. A TV screen's gelid glow stings just behind his eyes. 

'Mikes?'

Gerard's palm passes over his shoulder in a warm, dry rasp, and just like that, something snaps back into place. Time, or his grasp on it; the fact of his own body, contiguous from head to foot. A whipcrack sound that isn't a sound. He sucks in a breath.

'Mikey.'

Gerard's hand passes down his arm, over his ribs, then up his spine and to the back of his neck. But there's nothing hurt, nothing bruised, nothing broken. Nothing for him to find, except, maybe, the fact that Mikey can't talk. The whole room vibrates and Mikey knuckles one eye because he can hear Andy breathing, but he can't really hear anything else. 

'Mikey.'

Gerard touches the shell of his ear this time, and then the futon sags while he sits up to get his arm around both of Mikey's shoulders. With Gerard's fingers spread against the side of Mikey's face, Mikey curls into him because it's the only thing he knows how to do, even if that isn't fair. 

'Mikey, what is it?'

'Tired.'

But he has his temple against Gerard's shoulder. He's pressed close enough to feel Gerard's long, slow exhale. He wonders what Gerard wants say.

'C'mon.' His fingers pass over Mikey's cheekbone. 'Lie down. Unless -- unless you wanna go be with Pete?'

Mikey sits up and Gerard's arm falls away. The TV's light, a white-whispering nimbus, filters all the way up to the loft, and paints Gerard in a pale wash. 

'I know you guys hang out some nights.' Gerard makes a cautious, awkward gesture. It might be a shrug, if his shoulder weren't fucked up. 'I don't mind.'

Mikey just stares.

He'd go back downstairs, maybe, if he thought he could survive the awkward. If he could remember what he said -- if he said anything at all -- on his way in. 

Or if he could smooth his thumbs over Pete's cheekbones, and trace the curve of his mouth, and taste the way he might smile if Mikey pushed him down against those ugly couch cushions and kept him there, and made a mess of both of them. 

The room tilts a little.

'I just need to sleep.' 

He can't quite tell if he's whispering, or if he's just hoarse. Either way, Gerard makes enough room for both of them to settle down on the futon, and Mikey lets a pale shear of wishful thinking fade into the night.

He doesn't sleep particularly well. He has itchy, restless dreams; half nightmare, half sex dream. They trickle down his spine when he startles awake to a very early morning. With a leaden feeling in his stomach, he twists out of bed, careful not to wake Gerard, and stumbles to the shower to do something about the hard-on that he doesn't even want to have.

***

Pete loves race nights. Always does, always has.

But in the last few weeks, he's come to treasure them, no matter how much he envies the actual drivers out on the track, because he's out on the track too, and putting on a show, and the shitstorm of … everything else … sloughs away for a little bit. It's like being fucking Cinderella, in sparkly shorts and hightops and nothing else. He has to go back to something shitty at the stroke of 4 am or whatever, but until then, he's turning heads at the proverbial ball.

It's not the rush he wants, exactly, but it's the rush he'll take. 

On the really good nights, he even pretends he's always been a grid girl, and he's always loved it, and he doesn't have some stupid middle-school crush sleeping off a shitty hookup on a futon that used to be his. He doesn't have an ex-best-friend that he's trying to avoid. It's fucking awesome.

At least until Gabe calls him on it.

'Dude where _are_ you?'

They're wandering through the crowd, having picked up burgers from Suarez's crew because Gabe, quote, "wanted to dick down with actual meat" -- and honestly, Pete can't blame him. Drama Threat Level Orange notwithstanding, he loves foiling Andy's attempts to improve his diet at every turn.

He wrinkles his nose at Gabe. 'I'm right here.'

'No, I mean in your…' Gabe gestures at his own head. 'You're keyed up or something.'

The thing about friends like Gabe and Andy is they've both known him long enough to read him. It's awesome, most of the time. Tonight? It's a pain in the ass. 

'I'm feeling cute.'

Gabe hazards a grab at his ass. Pete doesn't sidestep because he's feeling generous. 

'You _always_ feel cute, Wentz.'

'Don't see you bitching about it.'

'Girl, don't even try. I know the difference between feeling cute and tweaking out.'

Pete rolls his eyes. 'There's a lot going on back at the loft.' Which is true, and is also about as much as he can say out in the open, without getting paranoid that one of Leto's sleazoids is stalking him or whatever. 

Gabe just gives him a look. 'Uh-huh.'

'Look, if you wanna know so bad, gimme a ride back to your place in a bit. We'll talk.'

'Making me miss an afterparty to get the dirt? A hard bargain, babe.'

'You're free to say no.'

Gabe laughs, getting his arm around Pete's shoulders for real. 'You're free to not be smug.'

Pete squeezes Gabe around the waist. They wander through the crowd. True to their deal, Gabe offers to let Pete crash on the couch at his place because _I'm jealous; Hurley's hogging you._

Pete loves Gabe kind of a lot.

LA flits by in streetlamp shears and a citylight sprawl while they drive and it's easy, in the cool calm, to say things to Gabe that would get stuck in Pete's throat with anyone else. It's easy to tell the truth; Andy's loft really is full of people. And Pete's heart breaks a little every time he sees Gerard walk through the door, back from PT, stepping gingerly like even too bold a stride hurts him. 

And Pete can't sleep because he never really could, but now it feels worse. Itchier. A lonelier insomnia.

_Lonelier._

Gabe doesn't even bat an eye at that.

And Leto's, well, Leto -- and isn't that just the cherry on top of this shit-sundae. 

'I'm sick of it,' Pete says, chewing on his thumbnail as they pull up to Gabe's bungalow. 'Like, on top of everything? Really? I'm just fucking … sick of eating his shit.'

Unlike Andy, Gabe doesn't bat an eye at that either. He doesn't even say that Pete should or shouldn't do anything, he just _uh-huh_ 's, sincerely, steps out of the car, and waits for Pete to follow him into the house. Gabe's living room smells like incense, because he's a fucking weirdo, but Pete likes it; it's familiar and it makes the tension flow out of Pete's shoulders just a little bit and he throws himself down on Gabe's ridiculous couch while Gabe roots around in the kitchen for drinks. 

He returns with two cups full of -- margaritas, it turns out, once Pete sips it. With good tequila.

'You can crash here anytime you need,' Gabe says, dropping onto the couch.

Their knees touch, and he grins at Pete around the rim of his glass, all suggestive, like his generosity doesn't come without a price, but Pete's known him long enough to know that's bullshit. Pete swills more of his drink and it goes down smooth, and he bumps Gabe's shoulder with his own. There's one more thread to this story, but all of a sudden it _is_ hard to talk -- and not because of anything to do with Gabe.

He looks down at his drink.

'I know I'm preaching to the fucking choir about Leto, but -- I'm just tired.'

'Yeah, I'm getting that.' Gabe leans back against the couch and swallows more of his drink, easy as anything. His quiet is always easy, too, actually. But with his free hand he presses his fingertips up Pete's spine, feeling for something to loosen. 'That's all?'

Pete really, really wishes it were. 

'Joe showed up a few weeks ago.'

'Joe? Wait -- _Trohman_?'

'Patrick too.'

Gabe spreads his hand open between Pete's shoulder blades. 'We're gonna need more alcohol.'

Pete doesn't argue with that.

They sip their way through a second round, and Pete's loose and warm by the time they're done. He loves Gabe more than he loves most people and most things, and sometimes he thinks he doesn't tell him that enough. He knocks their knees again.

'Thanks.'

Gabe shrugs, lazy looking while he lounges. 'Never gonna turn you down in your hour of need.'

'Fuck off, it's not my _hour of need_.'

'Okay.' Gabe sits up enough to elbow him. 'If it ever is, just tell me.'

Pete's ears burn a little. They never really talk about his wreck ( _the_ wreck) and all the reasons he doesn't race anymore -- probably because there isn't all that much to talk about in the first place. You total two cars and maybe almost waste yourself in the meantime, and it starts to get hard to say anything at all. He remembers waking up in a dim hospital room, hurting all over, even through the morphine haze, and he remembers Gabe sitting beside the bed, ready with a grin.

_My shift,_ Gabe said, and that was that. 

Pete remembers more than just that, of course. He remembers what came before it. He remembers the kind of pain that makes you nauseous, and the dizzy shock that comes with it. He remembers Patrick, watching paramedics like he was waiting to wake up from a bad dream. He remembers trying to smile, choking on spit or blood or both, while people loaded him into the back of an ambulance. 

At a certain point, there really isn't anything to say about that one time when you were really sure you weren't going to make it to the ER alive.

But he did -- and that's something, he supposes. 

And even after a mountain of stupid shit, Hurley stuck with him. 

And even after that last final fucking fight with Patrick, lancing words and all -- Gabe stuck with him too. 

_Patrick ditched._ Pete remembers saying that, and remembers being so angry he couldn't even really think. 

Anyone else might have said _I told you so_. Gabe just let Pete stay the night. 

He rests his head on Gabe's shoulder. 'Okay.'

They finish what they have left of their drinks. Pete really did plan on sleeping out here on the couch, but Gabe huffs and says, 'Did you take a vow of poverty or something? I have the TV and a bed _and_ fucking Call of Duty in my room, asshat.'

That's about all it takes. And even though Call of Duty isn't really Pete's shooter of choice, it's still awesome, mostly because he gets to sit shoulder to shoulder with Gabe while they shout and swear at each other and lose probably more than they would if they weren't drunk. And they stay drunk, because Gabe takes a break to go make more drinks. By 3 am, they give up on the game and Pete snuggles down into the pillows on Gabe's fucking palatial bed, and Gabe crawls close to scruff his hair. He's very warm.

Pete swats at him, but grins. Gabe tugs his hair just to make a point and then lets it lie. Pete doesn't remember falling asleep.

***

Tonight the sun's low and pink and the windshield of the Trans Am needs a wash. It's like looking through some kind of Vaseline-smeared, soft-focus filter that makes the white, white concrete of the abandoned roading shimmer in Mikey's gaze. That's not unusual, though -- he came into the world with eyes like this. His glasses fix most of the problems, but a mirage, or the shadow of it, always hazes his peripheral vision when he stares at the road.

'Let's do another lap.' Patrick sounds tired.

 

Mikey's been doing laps for an hour but sure, Patrick, let's do one fucking more. He sets his foot down and fights the sigh twisting in his lungs. He's tired too.

The car hums around them. _Hums_ \-- not groans. He feels the vibrations in his wrists, and his elbows, and his tailbone, and a cloud scrolls cotton over the sun.

Patrick makes a noise, almost satisfied.

_Like an exhale._ He tried to explain riding turns like that -- yesterday, maybe. Two days ago. Whenever. Lean in and sigh and the road sighs too. It sounded kind of like magic, and maybe it would've made sense if Mikey could breathe any time he took a turn. But he felt his jaw go tight; he felt the gravel underneath them, grinding and crunching. 

Sunburst limns the cloud in white light. He coaxes the car on. 

'Easy, like that.' 

Patrick's voice sounds a little weird and far away.

Mikey lets the steering wheel whisper in his hands. He had a date with another light-polluted parking lot last night at 2:45 am, and the guy on pickup duty apparently had a complex about his dick size because he made damn sure Mikey saw that he was carrying. When he reached in for the payload, Mikey just looked away and tried not to notice anything about him. 

Another monster in the dark.

He got home with a fucking headache and crawled into bed and wished he could just go full Sleeping Beauty and let thorns grow over him.

He doesn't notice he hasn't lifted his foot til he's on the second straightaway, and he realises Patrick's talking again.

'--good job, keep it going,' he says, with some kind of actual positive, unstrained lilt to his tone.

The second corner glares as white as everything else and it … it sweeps, the wheel hisses through Mikey's hand and the shifter sits in his palm, warm and rounded and natural for once, and they get around the corner like it's no big deal at all. 

Mikey doesn't dare _breathe_ in case he fucks it up, but he gets them through the final two corners and back to where they started without mishap and without bleeding speed unnecessarily even once, either. His heart is going like a kickdrum. 

Patrick's eyes, when Mikey dares a shaky glance at him, are wrinkled at the corners, sunshiney, just like everything else. 

Then he notices Mikey focusing on him, and some kind of schooled-sensible expression slides over his face, but it looks like he's forcing it to be there.

Just for a second, Mikey thinks he recognizes this. Summer sun and magic. Pete -- except it isn't Pete, it's Patrick, and Patrick isn't anything like Pete. But it's the same … joy, there, or it was. 

'That was good,' Patrick tells him. He may as well cough the words out, for how awkward he sounds. 'I think we can call it a night, but that was -- that was good, Mikey.'

'Thanks,' says Mikey, because that's what you say when someone compliments you. Or … awkwardly and stiltedly praises you, at least.

He leaves the keys in the ignition and puts the parking brake on and hops out so Patrick can slide over into the driver's seat. He walks around the back of the car in the hopes that his wobbly knees will get over themselves in the few extra steps that takes before he can get back in.

It's a partial success. Patrick eases off the parking brake and pulls the Trans Am back to a leisurely pace to take them back onto the public roads. Mikey stares out the passenger side window, watching the houses slide by, wondering if anyone hears them driving down in that concrete canyon and wonders what the fuck. 

Patrick clicks something. The radio crackles to life -- tinny, weak bass and too much high-end for the song it's caught, some club anthem from a couple of years ago that Mikey vaguely recognises. He looks over in shock at Patrick in time to see him make a moue of distaste and twist the dial again til the station fuzzes out and back into something more golden oldies, without taking his eyes off the road. 

Glenn Frey, crackling to life warmly mid-verse, advises them both _don't let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy_. Patrick taps his fingers, huffs the words in a tiny, subvocal croon. He almost seems like he doesn't realize he's doing it. The sun's almost down and the road ahead is bruise purple under a cerise sky. Mikey's eyes are so much happier now the bright cast is off everything. 

'The Eagles?' he says, softly. 

He doesn't mean to tease -- he doesn't mean to do _anything_ , really. He just never took Patrick for … well. He doesn't know. He never took Patrick for anything because he never stopped to think much about it. But Patrick's singing, quiet as it is, is warm and amber and Mikey asks before he thinks the better of it.

Patrick doesn't quite look at him. 'DJ rights go to the driver.'

Mikey can't quite tell if he's annoyed -- Patrick always seems like he's annoyed, or like he's on the verge of being annoyed, and. Well. Mikey wishes he could make up his mind about Patrick. Or maybe he wishes Patrick could act like a normal fucking person, so then Mikey could make up his mind.

But his auburn hair feathers over his ears, which are pink, and maybe he isn't annoyed. And maybe Mikey can like him. 

'I'm not mad, dude. I just … ' 

Patrick arches one eyebrow at a red light, like that's the person conversing with him. 'Just?'

Mikey shrugs. 'I dunno. You gonna pull into Nazareth next?'

The light flips to green, but Patrick _does_ glance at him this time, and that same almost-smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes. 

'In my little red corvette.' 

Mikey doesn't laugh because it's a stupid fucking joke, especially in Gerard's tank of a car. He does suck on the inside his cheek a little bit. The moment passes and for a second, it feels like the awkward silence is gonna fill up the car again, and Mikey doesn't know if he can keep teasing like this. He would with Pete, but -- 

'I like Prince,' he murmurs.

Patrick shifts gears. 'Yeah. Me too.'

He's expecting Patrick to drop him and run, as usual, but instead when they pull up outside Andy's place he twists the ignition off and pockets the keys, and follows Mikey in. 

Andy's in the kitchen, if the noises and smells are anything to go by. Dinner, then.

And that by itself wouldn't be so bad, but Pete's lounging on the couch, doing who knows what on his phone. Normally, he'd get up, or at least wave at Mikey if he couldn't be bothered moving. He gets halfway there, maybe, looking up at least. And then he notices Patrick and Mikey feels something go to pieces, even though all that happens is Pete's expression smoothing out.

Patrick forges past them both to get to the kitchen like it's some kind of sanctuary and he doesn't look at Pete at all. His face is as pink as the sky was outside. 

It leaves a silence in the room that has an ugly, sucking quality -- and Mikey just stands there, not knowing what to do, because what _are_ you supposed to do when you walk into the middle of the most recent not-fight that your friend's having with his ex?

'Hey, Mikeyway.' 

That snaps Mikey back to reality. Pete sounds soft and sore and secretive, and it's enough to break the awkward ice, just a little bit. Mikey perches on the arm of the couch. He was gonna go to the kitchen and offer Patrick something to drink, because they had a good day out there, but … fuck it. Fuck him.

'How'd it go?' Pete asks.

'Okay.' Mikey fights not to chew on his lip. Pete looks tense as hell, dark around the eyes and chapped at the corners of his mouth. In the kitchen Patrick and Andy are talking under the sound of the coming-to-the-boil kettle, and Pete keeps not-looking in that direction. 'I'm getting better, I think. Maybe.'

'Told you,' says Pete, and he never actually did, not in so many words. He smiles the scaffold of one of his blinding grins at Mikey though, and it feels like a vote of confidence. 'Look at you, kiddo. You'll be a contender in no time.'

Mikey wants to hug him. Mikey never wants to hug anyone, except Gerard, but there's something about Pete's shivery smile and lounging body that's so fucking welcoming that the idea is actually tempting for once. He compromises by sitting down, at least, next to Pete on the grinding springs of the couch. Pete's eyes sparkle. It's enough to make Mikey want to smile -- he can feel the twitch of it teasing at his mouth.

The whole pretty, gentle moment falls apart when Patrick and Andy reappear and Pete goes tight as a high-tension wire. 

This time Patrick does look at Pete, and Mikey knows he's seeing what Mikey can feel because his face hardens, the way it only ever does when he's looking at Pete; like he's angry, but it's a disorganized anger, and all hollowed out, and empty. Not like he's angry _with_ Pete, exactly. Just angry at him, or around him, or. Something. 

Given the way he stiffens under Patrick's gaze, Mikey wonders if Pete knows there's a difference.

'Joe says hey,' Patrick offers. 

Pete just nods. The air tastes bitter and astringent.

Patrick makes for the door. Andy sees him out, but because the loft is the way the loft is, it's not like they leave the room in order to do this, so Mikey gets to pretend the atmosphere wafting off Pete isn't sub fucking zero as Patrick pats his pockets and makes sure he has the keys. 

'Good to see you again,' he says to Andy, ostensibly, but loud enough for the room. 

And then he's gone, and Pete … deflates. Like he was only holding himself up with the hydrostatic pressure of whatever gross, painful emotion it is he feels when Patrick's around, which -- fuck if he knows what that is, because Mikey can't tell if Pete hates Patrick or misses him, or loves him, or cries over him, or just wants to be away from him. 

He eyes Pete, trying to decide what to do while Andy goes back to the kitchen, entirely calm, which, in Mikey's opinion, is a fucking herculean achievement, because Mikey just wants to make this better. When Mikey felt like Pete looks now, Pete gave him somewhere to sleep.

And now? 

Mikey picks at the sleeve of his shirt. 

'You weren't here last night,' he says softly.

It's not an accusation, it's … something else. And maybe he shouldn't say it, because he knows it's thin ice. He wasn't here for a good portion of last night either, and he's sure Pete could leverage that fact as it pertains to any number of the nights preceding. Pete just moves, almost like he's shrugging.

'Visited Gabe.'

'Oh.'

Except for Andy in the kitchen, everything's so fucking quiet that Mikey feels like he can't breathe. He's so bad at this, he knows. He's so bad at helping people, at making things not hurt -- Gerard can do it, but Gerard can do a lot of things Mikey can't. He sucks on his bottom lip, wondering if it's weirder if he sits here and says nothing or if he just goes up to the loft to pretend like he's sleeping.

Pete makes the decision before Mikey can. He bumps Mikey's shoulder with his own.

'If you're gonna chill, you gotta keep the heavy thinking down to a minimum, dude.'

Mikey looks at him. 'What?'

'You're thinking too much.' Pete smiles at him, and it's as morning bright as it always is, even though it hangs like thin sheet over that same soft, open soreness. 

He's so warm against Mikey's shoulder. 

'I'll try.'

'C'mon.' Pete's smile doesn't go anywhere, and neither does everything else. 'What is it?'

Mikey thinks of a night that may as well have been a million years ago, when he drove home with Pete in Andy's truck and they stopped to get junk food on the way, like they were little kids getting away with something while Andy wasn't there to watch. It was so fucking stupid, but he wants to fold it up now, the whole dream moment, and keep it somewhere safe.

He just shrugs. 'It's nothing.' He thinks of passing under a green light and almost laughing with Patrick. His stomach sours. 'I'm sorry we don't get to hang out anymore.'

For one flash of a second, Pete's face is inscrutable, his smile vanishing. He just keeps his eyes trained on Mikey. Mikey can't do anything but stare back, feeling like they're somehow sitting too close all of a sudden. 

And then? 

The corner of Pete's mouth wrinkles again; it's not the same, big smile as before -- just the ghost of the thing. 

'Well, I'm here right now.'

Mikey tries to smile back. He's not sure if it works, but Pete laughs a little when Mikey states the obvious: 'Me too.'

There's a cored out feeling to the moment, but fuck it, Mikey will take it. Fuck the stupid car and fuck Patrick and fuck everyone who hurt Gerard and who wants to hurt Pete. Maybe he can't get back those happy, stupid joyrides that he used to take with Pete (weeks ago, that's all, just fucking weeks ago, but at the same time they're like a sepia-toned distant memory), but he can have this. He bumps his shoulder against Pete's for good measure.

'Wanna watch a movie?' He nods to Pete's laptop, where it sits on the floor just by the couch. 

Pete's smile widens just that much. 'Always.'

Pete only has weird movies. Not weird like Gerard's movies -- weird like movies Mikey wouldn't expect a grown man to enjoy, or even think about. Mikey doesn't mind.

In the kitchen, Andy clatters around some more, and they get thirty minutes into _Willow_ when Pete sighs next to Mikey and rests his head on Mikey's shoulder. Mikey … has to work to keep himself from leaning in, first, and then to keep himself from going tense in an effort not to lean in. 

''m I too heavy?' Pete asks.

He's the opposite, frankly. 'No.' 

Pete huffs, and nuzzles at his shoulder. 'I'm not sleeping, I'm just resting my eyes,' he declares, then he snorts a little into Mikey's shirt, a tiny little snuffle of an exhale that's as much sneeze as laugh but not that much of either. 'You need a shower, Mikeyway.'

His laugh lines imperceptibly crease deeper. Mikey comes _this close_ to shooting back 'you offering to wash my back?' but he yanks the words away before they can leave his stupid impulsive mouth and ruin things. 

So instead he says: 'Beggars can't be choosers, Wentz.'

Pete hums and stays where he is and eventually his breath evens out, like he's dozing. He's so warm and Mikey's eyes feel gritty. He holds very still and listens to how Pete breathes. 

Mikey's burner phone doesn't go off. And Andy doesn't say a word when he flits through a couple of times to do things like grab cans of lentils from the store cupboard. He gives Mikey a very Mom look a couple of times, but Mikey lets it lie, because he can't talk and he can't shrug. His side's just going numb from how he's holding himself to keep from jostling Pete.

Andy can think what he wants. Mikey isn't doing anything wrong, he isn't taking advantage, or … or whatever.

Even if he thought about it. 

Eventually the sounds in the kitchen become the silvery noise of cutlery and the clack of plates, and Mikey has to shake Pete awake. Pete makes this soft, reproachful noise that makes Mikey's gut squirm. 'C'mon. Andy's gonna get mad if we don't eat.'

Andy will … most likely not get mad, but he probably will force feed them. Mikey gently shrugs until Pete's sitting upright all on his own, even if he's still blinking softly and hazily, and immediately Mikey's arm pinches pins and needlesx. He makes himself get up, cold where Pete had been very warm.

He leaves Pete sitting forward with his elbows on his knees, pulling himself together, and goes to get Gerard, feeling like a dick coming and going -- for leaving a spaced-out Pete alone and for having left Gerard by himself so long. 

Gerard is up and gingerly zipping up his own hoodie when Mikey makes it up the stairs, though, and he doesn't look like he felt abandoned. 'I heard the plates,' he says. 'You didn't have to come shepherd me, I'm not a total invalid.'

Just for that, Mikey makes a point of taking his arm. 

Downstairs, he hears the couch springs creak and Andy saying, 'Hey Pete, gimme a hand here?'

It's possible Mikey isn't the only person Pete's got. It's possible Pete doesn't even know he's got Mikey, not really, except that the way he felt, asleep against Mikey's body was. God. Trusting? Like he wouldn't have just fallen asleep against anyone like that, like the way they can be together is … special somehow. Maybe it is. It always feels like it is when they get the chance to have it. 

Dinner's quiet. Gerard asks Mikey questions about how driving went, talks to Andy about the garage -- Andy has some jobs coming in tomorrow but he's got to do some drop-offs as well, so Gerard's going to make sure everything coming in has documentation and some notes taken on what the issue is, that sort of thing. 

Pete stares at his plate, for the first five minutes, and then pulls himself together enough to join in on the conversation. 

'It's like you think I can't do an oil change or something,' he says, when Andy turns down his offer to get a head start on the new batch when they come in.

'I know you can do an oil change,' says Andy, after finishing the last bite of his dhal. 'But that's about the only thing you can do and not everything coming in tomorrow needs its oil changed.'

'You wound me,' says Pete, laying a hand over his heart and pouting theatrically first at Andy and then at Mikey and Gerard when Andy doesn't crack even the tiniest part of a smile. 'I can also wash windshields and I look great spreadeagled on the hood of basically anything. I add value.'

'You lolling all over a car I'm trying to work on doesn't do anything but add greasy handprints,' says Andy. 'I know this, unfortunately, from experience.'

Gerard snorts into his own portion of dhal, and Pete's grin is the full hundred watts now and it's infectious. Mikey smiles at him because he can't help himself.

Fuck.

Later on Mikey's lying in bed in the dark, with Gerard, and digging his fingernails into the palms of his hand, because seriously, fuck. 

Of all the black holes to throw yourself into, Mikey fucking Way, why would you let it be the one that's still in … something … with Patrick? 

If it had been him, feeling whatever way Pete felt when he saw Patrick, Mikey would have fucking got out, or bit his lip and faked his way through small talk just to fucking prove he didn't care, that he wasn't heartbroken or hurt. And maybe he would have gone looking for a nameless someone afterwards, to take the pain away. 

Isn't that what bodies are for?

But Pete let the bruise bloom on his skin, and let Mikey be gentle against him like it soothed the hurt, and that's so -- that's something, something alien and precious and treasurable. 

Gerard snorts a fizzy little snore and rolls in his sleep. He's stopped wincing when he moves his bad arm, which has to be a good sign, right, because he can't fake his reactions when he's asleep. Mikey wriggles his way onto his belly, arms tucked under his chest so he can be self-contained enough to hopefully not punch or kick Gerard if sleep actually comes for him and strips away his motor control. He wishes he knew what his subconscious was trying to fucking fight off. 

***

Andy would hardly call himself an optimist. Hard-nosed realism has done well by him, and he sees no reason to change. Which is why, on a sunny afternoon like this one, with Patrick in his kitchen and no fights or miserable run-ins as of yet, he's starting to wonder if it's hopeful in the stupid way to think that maybe, _maybe_ , it's possible to repair all the things that got broken two years ago, even if it won't be exactly the same in the long run. 

It might be.

But here he is, not turning Patrick away any time he comes back to the loft with Mikey. Pushing bitterness to the side because grudges do no one any good, no matter how angry he may have been with Patrick for the last two years.

He just lets Patrick sit at the bar and sets about washing grease off his hands in the sink. 

'There's a race this Friday,' says Patrick quietly to his back. 

Andy stiffens. 

'I know,' he answers carefully, and dries his hands off on the hand towel hanging from the oven door. His fingernails are still black underneath and he'll have to do away with the hand towel, but he has more important things to worry about right now. When he turns around, Patrick's fidgeting with the way his hat sits on the crown of his head, a sure sign he's thinking something over. Andy watches. 'Pete puts them all in the calendar on my phone somehow.'

Patrick bites his lip. 

'You think he might be ready?' Andy prompts him, because it's obvious. You don't crew together as long as Andy and Patrick did and not wind up able to read your friend like a book. 

Patrick nods, not really looking at anything in particular.

For what it's worth, Andy agrees. 

It's time to put Mikey on a track, see what he's got. It's been weeks of practice, of repairs, tweaks, tests -- Joe and Andy and Ray, collectively, have put more time into the Trans Am than it's worth, and Andy suspects that if Patrick could have got his hands on a dyno they'd have spent an extra week worrying about torque alone. Patrick's ranting, both direct-to-Andy and relayed via Joe quietly later, has been winding down. There's been praise, even -- scant and short, but praise, and Patrick doesn't sugarcoat things, so if he's being positive, there's something to be positive about. 

Even _Mikey's_ been upbeat of late. 

'I held it through an oversteer,' he confided to Andy over breakfast just this morning. 'It fishtailed and I held it.'

He was so goddamn proud of himself; certainly as excited as Andy had ever seen him get. This quiet, unsure, starry kind of pride that Andy couldn't help smiling at. He gave the kid an extra helping of oatmeal because he didn't know what to say except, 'good job'.

'Who's ready?' 

Pete materializes in the kitchen doorway with Mikey behind him. 

Perfect timing, Pete. Annoyingly perfect timing. Andy would expect nothing less. 

The way Pete fakes a smile at Patrick is almost as perfect, but not quite. Again, you don't crew with someone -- you don't live with someone -- as long as Andy has with Pete, and not learn how he looks when he's lying.

The more Patrick's around, the more Pete's lying, and they've been getting better, both of them, at being civil. Andy still, frequently, wants to bash their heads together, but 'fake it til you make it' is better than one or both of them staring at the damn walls. 

'Mikey. For a race on Friday,' Patrick says, glancing at Mikey over Pete's shoulder. 'You game?'

Pete actually looks at Patrick all the way. He blinks. Patrick holds Mikey's gaze steadily and ignores Pete, because he's about as predictable as Pete is. But it's also the first time Andy's seen Pete look directly at Patrick in a very long time. 

Mikey just boggles at Patrick, his mouth slivered open, for a long enough time that Gerard appears as well, halting in the doorway because two people are in his way.

'Is everything okay?' he asks, waving his coffee mug up over Mikey's shoulder as evidence for why he needed to be down here, and then wincing. He's doing a lot better but that shoulder's not going to be ready for proper usage for a while yet. 

Mikey and Pete shuffle into the kitchen properly and Gerard slides past them to get at the coffee. 

'We're fine,' Andy reassures him, because clearly no one else is going to. 'Patrick thinks Mikey can go for a real race, if he wants to.'

Gerard actually pauses, looking at his brother. Mikey, though, just keeps looking at Patrick.

'You're serious,' Mikey says. 

Patrick shrugs. 'I think it's time for you to give it a shot.' His voice is very specifically even. 'So. Good?'

'Yeah,' Mikey, rasps. He clears his throat. 'I. I guess?'

'It's a road circuit this week,' says Pete immediately, like now that Mikey's agreed, the floor's open for plans. 'The Trans Am will be fine.'

But Mikey's gone a funny colour, in the wake of agreeing; a barely perceptible shade paler than his usual pale-and-interesting. Maybe the Trans Am will be fine but something about that bloodlessness makes Andy wonder if Mikey will be. 

'Vicky'll tell me the route,' Pete adds, sure and boisterous. 'You can practice. I'll come with you, we'll get it all mapped out and I'll show you the best lines through all the turns.' 

Pete's grinning at him, but Mikey watches Patrick, like Patrick's the one in charge. Andy supposes he kind of is, or at least he understands why Mikey would think that. 

Patrick shrugs. 'Probably a good idea,' he agrees, not looking at Pete either. 

He's barely through the sentence before Pete has his phone out, tapping out a text. Andy would bet good money, if he were a betting man, that it's to Saporta. 

Mikey clears his throat again, like there's something stuck in it. 'Okay. I mean. Yeah.'

Andy thinks he's probably been in more awkward situations than this one, but none of them were in his own kitchen or involved so many fully clothed sober people. There's a beat, silent except for Gerard moving to get closer to Mikey and Pete's phone's haptic touchpad _bzzzzt_ ing under his frantic fingertips -- and then Patrick says, 'You know what you're doing. You just need to get used to the route.'

Gerard nudges Mikey, like 'see'? Mikey swallows again and nods. It looks stronger this time. 

***

'Wrench,' Patrick doesn't bother to look up; he just sticks his hand out when he hears the footsteps swush into Toro's garage. 

'Which one?' Joe asks, dry. 'They come in different sizes, dude.'

Patrick rolls his eyes and casts around for the thing himself -- he had it only a minute ago. 

Joe comes over and picks up something from the grease rag flopped over the engine block. 'This wrench?' 

Patrick snags it out of his hand. 'Thanks.'

'What … are you doing?' 

'What does it look like I'm doing?'

'Obsessing.'

Patrick gives him a _feel free to fuck off_ look. 'I'm setting this piece of shit antique up for a race.' He wipes his hands off and drops the hood, neatly. He goes for the corner where Ray keeps his jacks. 'Are you gonna help me get it up on blocks so I can change the oil?'

'Patrick. Let it go. Toro's making pizza. Actually from scratch, I watched him fucking hand-stretch the dough for the crust, he's like. Going to make a killer house-husband for someone someday. He even got that vegan cheese shit off Hurley, and I've literally never seen Iero get this pumped about anything that wasn't built by Yamaha.' 

'So that's a no on the oil?' 

Joe makes a reproachful face. But he picks up a second jack and Patrick is so thankful. He doesn't have the energy to argue, even though he's so wound up he feels like he's going to start peeling his own skin off. 

'Not to be prissy about this,' Joe adds, 'but you know me, Hurley, and Toro have all been over this car at least once each in the last week. Mikey doesn't drive hard enough for it to have picked up any kind of fault since the last time someone checked it. You know that.'

Patrick situates his jack under the front axle and inserts the bar, then gets back to his feet and dusts his hands off to start pumping it up. 'Yeah, I know that.'

Joe kneels down to place the second jack. 'Alright, well, you're the one who's gonna get shit all over his shirt.' 

He's right. Patrick gets the oil pan loose but not with a considerable fucking fight and it … makes a mess. Everywhere. 

'When was the last time this thing had a full change?' he demands, sliding out on the dolly so that he can get up and look at the rusty, chunky goop in the bottom of the pan while trying not to look at the ruin of his shirt. 'The Cretaceous period?'

Joe's already sanding the floor, because he's a good friend.

'I told you,' he says, the corner of his mouth twitching as he scuffs sand around to soak up the oil. 

'Whatever.' Patrick doesn't want to huff at him, he really doesn't. But he's so fucking over this. 

"This" being: this deathtrap of a car, the race that hasn't happened yet, the springloaded ache in his head, and Mikey--

He reaches for the dolly again. 

Joe waits til he's back under the car before saying, 'You know he's never gonna be perfect, right? It doesn't matter what car he's in or how sweet it's running.' 

He says it very quietly and very, very seriously, and Patrick can't let go of what he's doing or he's gonna get waterboarded with Castrol so he bites his lip hard and counts backwards from ten, viciously cinching bolts tight in lieu of losing his temper.

'I don't want him to be perfect,' he answers, when he can breathe evenly. 'I want him to make it across the finish line in a car that's still moving under its own steam.'

Joe makes a noise, like he's not sure he believes Patrick. He's so fucking annoying. Or they've just known each other for so long that he knows when Patrick isn't really saying everything, and that? Is also fucking annoying.

'I want him to be okay,' Patrick snaps, tightening the final bolt and pushing himself back out from the car. He sits up on the dolly to look at Joe.

'He's more okay than he would have been without your help.'

And maybe that's true, but it's not really enough. Patrick knows that Joe knows that, so it feels like a pretty empty consolation.

'He's not ready,' Patrick lances. 'He's never going to be ready; no one's ready for their first race -- I get it.'

'You're the one who said he could do it.'

'I know! And he … probably can. But I don't have to like it. And I don't have to like that I don't know who's going to be out there on the track with him, and I really don't have to fucking like that Leto, racketeering creep extraordinaire, has had a car in every race since we got here, according to Andy.'

'So you're changing Mikey's oil.' Joe offers a hand to Patrick, pulling him to his feet. 

As a way of saying thank you, Patrick lets Joe wipe his now-greasy palm off on Patrick's shirt. He's definitely not going to be able to wear it again, so why not? 

'Yes,' he clips. 'I'm changing his oil.'

Joe gives him a long look, then opens his mouth, a beat away from saying something Patrick probably doesn't want to hear. 

'You have to watch Pete,' Patrick interjects before Joe can get to whatever he was going to say. He kicks the jack handle to let it depressurize, then goes round the back to do the other. While he's out of Joe's sight he adds, 'If Leto pulls something -- Pete can't get into it.' 

'Okay.' Joe says it very slowly, very evenly. 'I think Andy probably has it under control.'

'Andy's one person.' Which is, definitively, not the point, but it's the thing that's easiest to say. 

'What do you want me to do, handcuff myself to him? He has to be on the grid. And _we're_ not going to be there because we're supposed to be laying low.'

'I know.' Patrick puts the jacks back in their place, one by one, huffing a little at the weight. 'I do know, okay. I just.' He scrubs one greasy hand over his brow and then frowns at the feel of it. 'You know what he's like about Mikey.'

It's the first time Patrick's really … said it, but it's not like it's news. 

Joe shrugs. 'You really think Leto's going to pull some shit?'

Patrick blows out a sigh. 'How should I know? He used to pull shit back when we were in this-- ' Joe gives him another look, and Patrick soldiers on '--and on top of that, people in fucking _Anaheim_ know his name now. And every time we heard about Gerard, we heard about Jared fucking Leto. That doesn't feel a little off to you?'

Joe shrugs again, and Patrick can tell he's trying to placate -- or, at the very least, not further aggravate how aggravated Patrick already is. Patrick yanks a rag off the toolbench. 

'If he does try to throw something, Mikey's going to be out there, and he's new, and he's not going to know what to do. That's all.'

'And Pete?' Joe asks, steadily.

Patrick loves him so fucking much and hates him at the same time. He doesn't want to talk about Pete, but he brought Pete up. And now Joe's giving him the chance.

He doesn't take it. 'I'm just worried. There's too much … tangled up here. '

Joe slides his hand softly over the Trans Am's hood. 'I feel you,' he cedes, and his voice is soft again, and maybe a little scared. 'But for now, there's nothing else you can do except come and eat some fucking pizza, okay?'

Patrick lets Joe tow him out of the garage, shuts the light off as they leave and watches the glow on the Trans Am's dented chrome wink out. He feels guilty for ignoring the fact that Joe might also feel shitty about this situation. He tries to tell himself it's all going to be fine.

The problem is: 

If something happens to Mikey, it might not be just Pete that needs holding back from doing something stupid.


	6. Chapter 6

All things considered, race night could be off to a worse start. 

By midafternoon, Mikey appears to be verging on the edge of fullblown catatonia -- but he sips water, at least, and smiles faintly when Gerard talks to him (gently, Andy notes; Gerard, for all that he's a recovering survivor of a driveby shooting, is never anything but gentle with Mikey). He chews on his lip, but he also nibbles a little bit at the food Gerard insists he eat.

'You can't drive hungry,' Gerard says softly.

The same shadow of a smile twists Mikey's mouth. Gerard tucks a bit of Mikey's hair out of his face.

So yes, Andy thinks, it could be worse.

For Mikey, at least. Pete fucking Wentz isn't dealing well at all because, as Andy well knows, he can't not feel his feelings, and the contrast between him and Mikey would almost be funny -- except for how it's not funny in the slightest. To stave off an anxiety hurricane, Andy gives him a list of menial tasks that need attending to in the garage. 

All in all, he'd say it's a success in that they make it to 4 pm without anyone having a complete meltdown. And further, when Toro and Iero arrive, there's no sniping, and no one loses their patience -- a particularly impressive feat considering Joe and Patrick arrive in tow. 

'Your pixie control freak wanted to come along,' Frank remarks when he catches Andy watching everyone trail in. 

Frank shrugs as if to say _well, what can you do?_. Andy has to agree that he isn't wrong. If Patrick wants to do something, there's not really a lot anyone can do to stop him.

And Patrick looks like he's already in a stellar mood, his jaw gone all tight.

'He's not my anything,' Andy answers, 'but feel free to call him a pixie to his face.'

Frank snickers. 'Like I'm scared.'

A smile quirks at Andy's mouth before he can catch himself. 'Did he tell you _why_ he wanted to come?'

'I dunno, dude. He's your crew. Or whatever. Ask him.'

 

Asking is the last thing Andy wants to do. Looking at Patrick, he's quite confident he's not going to get an answer that he likes. He might not get an answer that even makes sense, so why bother? Across the room Gerard stands close to Mikey, doing something he's seen them do a on occasion a few times before, which he can only sum up as: Gerard supplying Mikey with life force just by virtue of sheer proximity. 

Frank carries on: 'I think Trohman just came along as damage control.'

 

So much for things being off to a worse start. Andy tugs a hand through his hair and lets Toro half walk with, half guide Mikey out the door with Gerard flanking Mikey on the other side -- and Pete starts to follow.

'Hey,' Andy interjects, 'ride with me.'

Pete gives him a mulish look, but he doesn't argue. There are brief, beautiful moments when Andy wants to remind Pete that he's a good person, and a good friend, no matter what he happens to think of himself in the midst of his very obvious anxiety meltdown. This is one of those moments -- but given the circumstances, Andy knows that any oral testaments in favor of Pete's character will have to wait.

Frank follows Toro out the door with a _have fuuuun_ look on the way. Andy tells himself that now is _also_ not the time to roll his eyes -- not with Patrick standing here looking like he's strung on a high tension wire running off of nothing but anxiety and anger, and not with Pete looking like he's going to crawl up a wall for want of something to do. 

Andy stuffs his keys in Pete's hand. 

'Go get the truck,' he instructs and Pete goes without argument, and yeah. He's an idiot, but he's one of the best people Andy knows. Andy turns to Patrick. 'Are you freaking out?'

Between them, Joe sighs like he already got into this with Patrick and now he has to relive the cliffnotes. 

Patrick makes such a fucking petulant face. 'I'm going,' he snaps.

Andy agrees with Joe. Sigh. He knows Patrick. And he knows Joe. And knowing Joe, he's more than comfortably confident that Joe already had an argument with Patrick about why this is a stupid, bad, and possibly dangerous idea, given their beef with Leto. And he knows that if Joe couldn't talk Patrick down, there's no point in trying again.

Andy grabs an old, gigantic Metallica hoodie off the hook by the door. 

'Wear this.' He tosses it at Patrick. 'Keep your head down. And don't be a fucking idiot.'

Patrick's expression softens a little and he gives Andy a look that might almost be grateful. 'Thanks.'

'Just. Get in a car. Not mine.' The door makes a soft click on Patrick's exit and Andy pauses again, looking at Joe. 'What about you?'

'Gerard can probably use company.'

Andy, more frequently than he says out loud, is profoundly grateful for Joe Trohman's existence. He holds the door long enough for Gerard -- who is making a very admirable attempt at looking like he's not freaking out -- to gingerly make his way back inside. Gerard even gives Andy that sweet, sincere smile, and Andy boggles a little at how this guy could have ever gotten himself into as shitty a situation as the one he's in. It's like finding out Thumper the bunny rabbit was involved in gunrunning.

'We'll see you soon,' Andy promises. 

Joe just nods, and Gerard gives Andy's shoulder a gentle nudge. 

'Go get to work.'

If Andy doesn't listen too closely, it's almost like Gerard believes that this is just like any other race night.

***

On the running theme of 'it could be worse', even though Pete's silent as a stone in the truck on the drive to the track, he lights up in his showmanship as soon as they're there, slipping out of the cab and tossing his shirt and peacocking around while cars pull in and engines rumble and good-natured shit-talking becomes the music of the night. 

Andy just swings out of the truck without remarking on the fact that Pete's smile is as fake as it could possibly be, because at least it's there. And anyone who doesn't know Pete very well won't be able to tell the difference between his playing it up out of frustration and his playing it up because he likes the spotlight.

Andy gets his own rig set up -- the usual -- and Patrick, practically drowning in the hoodie, materializes out of nowhere, vibrating like a fucking string. He watches Pete for a minute and then asks, quietly:

'Is it always like this?'

Andy glances up from hauling tires into sellable order in the bed of the trunk. Pete's on fucking fire, all heat and destruction, stalking up and down the lot and trashtalking every car he catches. Even Mikey's, even the Trans Am, until Saporta glides in and draws Pete's fire, which -- huh. Did they plan that?

'He's a grid girl now,' Andy tells Patrick, moving to get the grill in place. His phone _bzzt_ 's and he tugs it out of his pocket. Joe. 'Someone has to sell the show. It's a job.' He tries hard not to sound spiteful.

Patrick opens up his mouth like he's going to say something, but instead he just sucks in a soft breath, and stuffs his hands in the hoodie's pockets. Andy taps out an answer on his phone, and everything else carries on as usual. He keeps up the intermittent back and forth with Joe; the cars, Pete's shorts, Toro's hair, Suarez's crew having apparently convinced Blackinton to show up race-ready in silver-lame … leggings, maybe, Andy can't really tell, they're too blinding.

Eventually he catches sight of Vicky at Pete's side, saying something Andy can't catch, and then it's off to the track. Saporta follows her, brushing one hand over Pete's shoulder before disappearing into the throng. At Andy's side, Patrick moves not a muscle, watching with an intensity that would give up their game if everyone else weren't focused on the cars pulling up to the starting line.

Five in total -- an unmodded Impreza that's got no show, if Andy's any judge, an Evo IV, an honest to god M1 that will probably take the win if the engine's been looked after -- and the Trans Am, and Saporta's fucking hideous Shelby Cobra, all chromed out and hazed in neon purple like something hauled out of a terrible cocaine-fueled 1980s fever dream. It's a lineup of mostly exotic birds. And the Trans Am's a dowdy looking city pigeon sitting there, but, Andy does have to hand off a small point to Mikey: he keeps his place with the other cars and doesn't overstep the starting line. He looks like he belongs.

Small black mark? The other contenders all rev their engines and lean to their windows to gloat and threaten -- and Mikey twists his engine off while they wait. That hurts his image a little. A colder engine might also hurt his start. Andy bites his lip and tries to stop strategizing.

Beside him, Patrick pushes a thin breath out through his nose. 

Andy's phone _bzzt_ 's again. 

Pete struts onto the grid while Andy's tapping out a response and it's his loud voice that pulls Andy's attention back to the track. Well. That and the unmistakeable sound of the Trans Am finally starting, under the rumble of all the other engines already running and humming smoothly because they were (mostly) built this century. Patrick's tension eases, just a little. Andy wonders, carefully not looking at him, not looking away from the grid, if he thought Mikey just wasn't gonna turn it on at all.

Pete's voice is loud and as clear as a sharp gold sound over all of cars and bass and people.

'Alright, bitches,' he crows, because he always does, but it's less teasing than normal, more threatening. 'Don't waste my fucking night. Everyone came here for a fucking show -- you better give us a good one.' 

He thrusts one arm high and the absolutely insane lacy bra in his hand flutters just a bit. Andy never knows where he gets them. He suspects Pete buys them for the purpose of starting races, to be frank. There's a very weird rhythm to his 'ready, set. go', but at least there's a rhythm. And another point to Mikey: he doesn't jumpstart the call or lurch too late -- when Pete slams his lingerie-clutching hand down, Mikey's off the line with the rest of them, one of the pack. 

The cars roar past Pete and Andy watches him set back on one heel to not get blown over in the backdraft. He doesn't turn to watch them, though; he stays facing away, his shoulders sag just a little, the subtle roll of the muscles and joints there all outlined in taillight-red, and beside Andy, Patrick flinches. The silksheer bra flutters on the tarmac, entirely useless.

***

'You mind if I drink?'

Gerard, sitting at the bartop, just shakes his head. 

Sure, Joe snuck the beers into Andy's because he planned on this being a long night, but there's a difference, in his humble opinion, between violating Andy's sanctum of straightedgery and downing alcohol in front of a recovering addict. Gerard, though, just gives him the kind of soft, sweet look that Joe idly thinks he should learn to control unless he wants the whole wide world to fall in love with him. 

'Could you get me a soda?' Gerard asks. 

'Sure.'

The guy is clearly having his own private meltdown about his little brother -- and honestly Joe can't blame him, if Mikey's as anxious about driving as Patrick says he is -- so it's no hardship to sit with him and give him any and/or all of Andy's bougie sodas while Joe himself sits here and drinks for two. 

Or has one beer really slowly, in the event that Andy or someone needs him. 

'Sounds like everyone made it in one piece,' Joe tells Gerard, reading a text from Andy. Gerard _hmms_ and fiddles with his own phone, quiet as anything. 'And Iero's helping Mikey get all set up to go.'

'I know.'

Joe glances up. 'What?'

Gerard waves his own phone and smiles a smile that almost reaches his eyes. 'Ray's telling me.'

Right. Of course. Because Joe has only seen Gerard and Toro together very infrequently, but also, he has eyes. So of course Toro's the one texting him.

Joe's phone chirps again. Andy has moved on to something about Blackinton's ugly pants, the humidity fucking with Toro's hair, and Saporta's latest fashion disasters -- that last one makes Joe laugh a bit. He hasn't seen Gabe Saporta in years, but if his memory serves … 

'Apparently Saporta arrived in full technicolor glory tonight,' he relays to Gerard.

Whatever Toro's updates are, they probably _aren't_ inclusive of vaguely snarky side-commentary on everyone else's ugly clothing. Gerard smiles a little.

'I like him. He's nice.'

'Gabe?'

'Yeah.'

Joe can't help but boggle at that a little bit. Gerard looks at him, tilting his head.

'What?'

Joe shrugs. 'People call Gabe a lot of things, but … "nice" isn't usually one of them.'

Gerard just stands his phone up on its edge. 'They're not paying attention, then.'

Another lapse of quiet fills the kitchen. Gerard taps his nails -- painted in a bright blue that's starting to chip off -- on the back of his phone. Watching the way he fidgets, it's clear that he's 100% worried, but dealing with it, where anyone else (Patrick) would be snarling at Joe for trying at flippant small talk and then also for not talking at all. Gerard is so fucking sweet by comparison, even under duress -- it's unreal. This guy could break a lot of hearts. 

Joe looks at his phone again. 'Oh. Andy says Ray's hair is defying gravity even more than usual, and he's pretty sure he could stand a torque wrench up in it. Should I dare him to try?'

In answer, Gerard smiles that same sweet smile and Joe wonders if he's insane for noticing these things or if everyone else is just living in another dimension where this dude isn't an open book, a bleeding heart, and a completely unironic hopeless romantic. He tips his beer bottle at Gerard. 

'I'll tell him to wait til after the race.'

'Okay.' Gerard touches his drink to Joe's. The glass makes a clear sound. 

His phone goes off one more time -- _starting_ \-- and then suddenly the texts from Andy get less frequent and Gerard's phone goes totally silent. Joe watches the pads of Gerard's fingers go white around his bottle of soda and his heart lurches just a bit. Before he can think enough to stop himself, he leans in, just touching his shoulder to Gerard's good one. 

'Iero, Toro and Hurley are there,' he promises. 'And Patrick. And they all know what they're doing. He'll be okay.'

It may not be completely true, but it's something, and Gerard gives him a vague smile of appreciation. They don't say much after that, but Joe doesn't mind. It's not the worst situation he's ever been in -- you can't spend as much time as he's spent in this scene and not encounter at least one or two very serious freakouts. This is quiet, by comparison, and he can ride it out, even if it means just being another body in the room while Gerard lapses in silence and fidgets with his phone. 

'Thanks,' Gerard says after a while.

Joe glances at him. 'Thanks?'

'For hanging out.'

He looks all drawn and tired, but his mouth twists a little bit, almost happy. Joe smiles back.

'Hey, anytime.'

And really, he means it.

***

Andy's truck thuds when Pete falls back against it, on the other side of Andy from Patrick, so that Andy's functionally between the two of them. Andy does know and appreciate that everyone here is very stressed, but he has to fight the urge to roll his eyes at the capital-e level of Extra that these two bring to literally every instance of everyone's lives. Patrick just stares straight ahead, still, and Pete leans in a little, like he needs Andy to help find his center of gravity.

Andy, frankly, would not like to be in the middle of this, physically or otherwise. 

They can't hear the engines anymore, so it's a little bit startling when Patrick speaks very softly, and entirely unexpectedly. 

'He remembered to short-shift.' 

He sounds fond, of all things. Pete, next to Andy, shifts, his body unbending just a tiny bit against Andy's shoulder. Andy almost dares to dream that if Mikey makes it back around the corner, things might be okay. Maybe. If he were being optimistic.

He glances at Patrick and says, 'Yeah. He did.'

It's another one of those weird moments -- a shadow of the past -- where you don't have to say very much for someone to know what you mean, because he says it with a particular inflection and Patrick just looks at him, all huddled in that giant hoodie, and nods. 

Andy wishes Pete would say something, but at least he's stopped twitching. Or he stops right up until they hear the first rumble of an engine coming back around, and then he's tense as a coiled spring. Andy resists the urge to touch his shoulder, because they're supposed to be under the radar, they're supposed to have no fucking stake in this race beyond the money that Andy might make on a few new sets of tires tonight. They're over the other side of the track from Toro and Iero for a reason. If anything, Andy envies Ray and Frank the luxury of their obvious worried faces. 

The M1 comes in first, completely unsurprisingly, then the Evo -- the Evo could have taken it, but it's Blackinton behind the wheel of the Beemer and that's worth more than the younger engine. Then there's a gap and Andy doesn't like it for a full three seconds before two cars come round the bend, practically wheel-to-wheel. At first Andy's sure it's a fight for position and then he resolves it, the blur of colour and the roar of the engines: Mikey on the inside line with Gabe flanking him, flicking his eyes to Mikey every so often, clearly controlling his speed to match the Trans Am and make sure the final car can't take him. 

The final car. Andy realises Mikey's not last about the same time that Pedicone's Impreza comes around the final corner. He can see Frank, whose custom WRX is still in Toro's garage under a sheet til he can use a clutch again, looking completely unimpressed with this fellow Subaru aficionado, but that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all, because Pedicone is never gonna get around Gabe, who's made himself as wide as possible and isn't giving an inch unless Pedicone wants to send them both into a ditch. 

It's ridiculous, really, watching Saporta, _Gabe goddamn Saporta_ , drive his Cobra so slow. There's no way this is all the pace he can get out of the stupid thing, which means he held himself here, alongside Mikey, this whole time. 

They near the line and, thank god, Saporta puts his foot down and noses ahead of Mikey in time to take third. Letting Mikey take it would have been patronising, just as much as leaving him on his own would have been leaving him to get mowed down by Pedicone, but … 

Pete pushes off the truck, heading for the winner's circle nucleating around the M1 and the Evo.

'Guess we got a second driver for the night,' Andy mutters at Patrick, and Patrick looks up at him sharply, then shrugs. 'Somehow.'

'Yeah,' he says, very quietly. 'I don't wanna know what Pete had to do to swing that. Saporta should've been able to take the M1 if he didn't fuck up the start, and he didn't, I was watching.'

When the final car crosses, it's clear Pedicone was struggling with a misfire this whole time, and Andy has a little bit of sympathy but he's mostly thankful for so many stars aligning for them tonight. Mikey pulls the Trans Am over near Ray's truck and gets out. The shakes are practically visible from here, but Toro and Iero crush him in a hug that will probably flatten them out. 

Patrick stirs next to Andy, and Andy braces himself, because if Patrick thinks he can go over and join the party, Andy's going to shake him. It was stupid enough letting him come down here, but that'll blow what little cover he still has. 

Instead, Patrick asks: 'Can I have the truck keys, please?' There's no real inflection in his voice. 'I just need to sit for a minute. I won't go anywhere, I promise.'

Andy drops the keys in his palm.

The Impreza pulls up as Patrick melts away. Pedicone swings out and gives Andy a sheepish look. 

Andy looks away from the scene around the Trans Am and pulls himself back together. Business calls. 'Pop the hood.'

'I just need--'

Andy picks up his greasy spanner roll and props the hood up. The engine bay is a mess. 'Don't start at me with 'just' like you know what the fuck you're talking about, ' Andy tells him, annoyed at this level of mishandling. 'At the very least you wanna get this thing tuned, if you're gonna keep trying to keep up with actual racers--'

***

By the time Pedicone has been sorted out -- and Andy's mood hasn't been improved by trying to deal with someone who doesn't know when he's on to a good thing and has a tendency to ruin the cars he drives -- the party around the winners has moved on to the loud music and risque dancing portion of the evening. The lower-key gathering around the Trans Am is a warm little huddle from which Gabe Saporta's general flamboyance and Frank Iero's high-pitched giggle emanate even more loudly than usual.

Patrick is still bundled in Andy's truck cab. Andy eyeballs him. The radio's on in there, he can see the buttons all lit up as the gloaming closes in. Patrick, with his eyes closed, murmurs along with whatever's playing. He'll be fine. Andy crosses the tarmac towards the others, and sidles into the circle next to Frank, who tips his chin up in greeting and passes Andy a soda, then transfers his weight to Andy's side rather than Toro's. Andy doesn't mind. Toro's probably been playing crutch for about four hours by this point. Andy can take Frank's weight, it's not like there's much of him. 

He pulls out his phone and sends Joe a text -- _everyone's fine. Car made it. Mikey came fourth not last_ \-- and then opens the soda bottle. 

'--and I'm telling you, pipsqueak, even if you had both your legs and grew a third one, your WRX could not take my Cobra in a standing quarter, no way.'

Andy rolls his eyes. 

'Are you listening to this guy?' Frank appeals to the group at large, with a particular smirk for Andy and then Toro. 'I wouldn't fucking challenge you to a standing quarter, dipshit, I'm a _rally driver_ , why do you think I've got a fucking Subaru in the first place? Jesus. Your frou-frou little piece of disco trash is useless literally anywhere _but_ a standing quarter, princess. A WRX will hold its own on dirt, on gravel, hell, on tarmac too, if it's over a longer distance.'

Gabe winds up for a response, and Andy looks back down at his phone when it buzzes with Joe's reply -- _cool. g says you shold try the wrench thing on toro now_. Andy has to hand it to them -- Frank and Gabe, between them, are making enough noise for this to look like any other night even though no one else is really talking.

Ray's texting too, sandwiched between Frank and Mikey, non-phone arm holding a beer and resting casually around Mikey's shoulder. 

Andy stretches, Frank shifting easily against his ribs, and movement catches his eye --Patrick in the truck, reaching forward to change the radio station, maybe. He's too far away to really make eye contact with, but he looks relaxed. There's something about the slant of his shoulders, the way he pulls his hat down a little over his eyes and leans back into his seat when he finds a song that suits him. He's fine. 

Pete slams into the gap next to Saporta and takes his drink off him all in one high-octane move. There's a smear of something on his shoulder that's either engine grease or someone else's eyeliner. He elbows Mikey when he's drained Saporta's bottle and handed it back to him. 

'You did good, for a rookie.'

There's a twinkle in his eye, but it's fake, fake, fake. Pete's all but wrung out. 

Mikey isn't even bothering to front. He smiles, very marginally, but it barely settles on top of the grey look of someone whose adrenaline took every drop of energy out of their body when the rush subsided. Andy wants to take him home, the same way he'd want to take a dog home from the pound. 

One of those weird everyone-drops-silent-at-once moments happens, and then Mikey says, quietly, 'I'm kind of tired.'

In the background, Blackinton's crew are honest to god caterwauling 'We Are The Champions'. 

Ray immediately says, 'Okay, let's go home.'

Mikey looks immeasurably grateful. 

Ray nods to Andy: 'See you back at your place?' 

Frank stirs against Andy's side, stiff and sore. Andy braces him til he takes a breath and steps away. He nods back at Ray. 

'Yeah, no problem.'

'See you guys around,' says Saporta, stretching, which takes some time. It's like watching a giraffe get up from a watering hole. 'Wentz, are we on for next Friday?'

Pete rolls his eyes. 'Always,' he says, but it's still forced. He's so tired, it's so obvious, and Andy wants to take him home too. 

'C'mon, let's pack up,' says Andy, catching Pete's eye. 'Seeing as you ditched me for the pack-in, I could use a hand now.'

'Fuck you, Hurley, I had a job to do.' 

'Yeah, and you've got another job to do now. C'mon Wentz, time you earned your keep.'

Pete lets Andy steer him back to the truck, and he stiffens a little when he sees Patrick in the front seat. Andy swears internally for a second, because he forgot, he fucking forgot, that this would even be an issue -- but y'know what? They're adults. If they can't handle a ride back to the loft, that's their problem. 

Patrick must feel the truck suspension shift as Andy and Pete lift a rack of tires into the bed of it, because a door slams and then there he is. Helping square tools away without saying a word. Pete doesn't look at him directly.

With everything packed, Patrick squishes himself into the narrow back seat of the cab, still silent. Andy climbs in and tosses Pete his phone.

'Tell Joe we're heading back.'

It's something to do, at least, and the electric haze of overtired-overstimulation around Pete dissipates just a little. 

The rest of the ride passes in silence, except for Andy's phone bleating every now and again in Pete's hands. Patrick just looks out the window, watching streetlights flit past, high between the palm trees.

***

In between pseudo-compulsively checking his phone, Gerard starts picking at his nails. It's hard to watch; it makes Joe itchy, and he wants to reach out and catch Gerard's hands, just to anchor him. He doesn't, for a long list of reasons, but mostly because he just doesn't know this dude all that well. So he suffers in sympathetic antsiness instead.

A few texts from Andy assure him that they're on their way back. Gerard's phone chimes once or twice -- presumably delivering the same message.

Still, Gerard jumps a little when the loft door clangs open, and then he's off his stool and out into the cramped sitting room in less time than it takes to count to five. Joe, personally, feels a little bit lightheaded with abrupt relief, so he can't imagine what it's like for Gerard.

He follows at a respectable distance.

In the sitting room, everyone's scattered, caught in a nervous sense of triumph so palpable the air crackles with it. Pete's basically leaning against the couch, looking wrung out. Ray braces Iero, whose face is a grey rictus of pain and determination, and they're both watching the Ways who, as far as Joe can tell, are communicating entirely by telepathy, based on the way that they look at each other. 

And Patrick … is standing at the back, a tiny little thing shrouded in that giant hoodie, unreadable.

From the door, Andy meets Joe's eyes and Joe just follows him to the garage without either of them having to say anything.

'Everyone lived, then,' is Joe's opener as soon as Andy flicks the lights on. 'Good job.'

Andy sighs and sounds tired. 'They did. Pete … isn't going to come down for a while. But he'll be okay. Mikey just needs quiet, I think.'

The back of Joe's neck itches. It _sounds_ like everything's fine, but if Andy is tired, it must have been an ordeal. He rocks up on the balls of his feet.

'So … should he do this again?'

'Dunno. I couldn't see the whole circuit.'

Obviously -- you can't ever see the whole circuit if you aren't driving. So it's a dodge of an answer. 

'That's not what I mean.'

Andy gives Joe a chilly look. 'I know it's not. He's scared, but I can't say if that means he should or shouldn't do anything. He was scared before he tried, and he still did it.' His mouth thins in an expression that would look almost sulky on anyone else. 'I wish we had a driver on the track who could tell us how they think he did.'

'You can't ask anyone?'

Andy _does_ look sulky, now, or grudging, like he doesn't want to admit what he's about to say. 

'I guess Saporta's probably friendly enough with Pete that he might give us an unbiased opinion.'

'You guess they're friendly enough?' Joe laughs, because unless something drastically changed in the last two years, 'friendly enough' is a dramatic understatement for what Pete Wentz and Gabe Saporta are. Attached-at-the-hip sex hurricane would be more apt. 'Isn't he like Pete's other best friend?'

'They're fuckbuddies,' Andy sniffs.

'Uh-huh.'

'That's how they self-describe.'

'Yeah, that was their cover story or whatever for their weird teenage-girl-sleepover thing.' 

Joe was around when Saporta first rolled onto the scene blasting Nicki Minaj out of his Cobra's open windows, and thus he witnessed Pete finding his spiritual long lost twin brother. Fuckbuddies doesn't even cover it.

'Listen, if you want me to recite for you--in lurid detail--every instance in which they've fucked, I can do that.'

'Wait, were you _there_?'

'Was I -- what the fuck?' Andy looks sincerely offended. 'No I wasn't there. Pete just has no filter.'

'Sounds traumatic.'

'Whatever. Whenever Pete chills, I'll tell him to ask Gabe.'

***

Andy has no idea what time it is when everyone either leaves his loft or drops off to sleep, but it feels late, and his eyes itch. He pulls out his phone anyway and pulls up Saporta's number.

Ugh.

If he were being honest (and he's not particularly inclined to be, in this case), he'd admit that he and Gabe have had each other's numbers for the better part of two years, as a mutual Wentzian safety net. He supposes he doesn't really need it anymore -- but if he were being _extremely_ honest, he might admit that he never felt compelled to delete Gabe's number. Pete's not a complete trainwreck anymore, but he's … Pete. Who knows what might come up. 

Like now. He pulls up the messages app.

_need to talk_

A message from Saporta blips back in under a minute. Andy can only assume that's because he's some kind of nocturnal urchin.

_anything for you hurley ;)_

Andy rolls his eyes. _about the race. just come by tomorrow._

_aight see ya then_

Andy tosses his phone onto the little bedside table.

To Gabe's credit, he does grasp the finer points of subtlety -- and when to use it -- without having to be told. The next day, he arrives at the garage in his fucking Shelby Cobra, announcing that he needs an engine check. 

A pretty blatant lie; the engine practically purrs when he pulls into the garage, and Andy has to own up to at least grudging respect over the fact that Saporta clearly knows how to look after his monstrosity. 

'First of all,' Gabe huffs, 'of course I know how to take care of her, Shelby's my baby. Second of all, it's called a cover story.'

Andy pops the hood. 'Everyone else is out.'

Leaning on the toolbench, Saporta just crosses his arms and leers. 

'Extra precaution.'

'You're a master of espionage.'

'Didn't you have a question about last night?'

Andy leans up from the engine bay enough to cross his arms. 'You saw Mikey on the track. How was he?'

'He did good.' Saporta shrugs. 'I mean, not good enough to ever be a contender, but.'

'But?'

'But ... he held it, Hurley -- the whole way. Even with that piece of shit car, and other drivers playing chicken, he never really lost control.'

Andy frowns. He doesn't love the idea of anyone particularly trying to scare Mikey out of line or off the track or whatever other bullshit people pull to get a win. 'Which drivers?' 

He tries not to sound paranoid. Even though he doesn't like it, the messing around thing is normal; it's par for the course even. But then there's Leto's crew and for all Patrick's not-so-subtle concern that Mikey might not be able to hold his own against _anyone_ on the tarmac, Andy is worried about actual vehicular manslaughter.

Or homicide.

Depending on how generous you are or aren't willing to be.

Saporta's nose wrinkles like he just caught a whiff of a rank smell. 'Ugh, the usual.' 

He namedrops two or three people Andy knows from the scene, the usual suspects. They weren't officially in the starting lineup, but there's nothing physically stopping people pulling on and off the circuit to mess with the race. They're not supposed to, but the usual suspects are "usual suspects" for a reason. 

'Leto's brother gave him a bit of a nudge around the second chicane,' Saporta adds. It should be disconcerting, but Gabe laughs a little, actually, like he's proud. 'Your boy fucking hit the brakes and let Shannon's Evo blow past him. It got him out of trouble, and what, was Shannon gonna turn around? It cost Mikey a place but it was a smart move.'

Andy relaxes fractionally. If Mikey's more scared than he is overproud, it'll keep him at least a little safer. And maybe the kid has a head for tactics, too -- most people's instincts would have been to speed up to try and lose Shannon, not brake-check him. 

Saporta gives him a look, like he knows what Andy's thinking. 

'He wasn't a danger to himself, or anyone else,' he says quietly. 'That's what you were worried about, right?'

Among other things. Andy unhooks the hood and lets it drop back into place. 'You know how some crews roll. I'm worried someone's going to see him and smell blood.'

'I'll keep an eye on him.'

There isn't much left to do with a car that's all in working order, so Andy tosses the keys back. 'Even if you have to lose more than once?' 

'Everyone already knows I'm the best in the game,' Gabe preens. 'I don't need to win every time. And losing has its perks, too.'

Andy doesn't even want to touch that one. Not that it matters; Saporta expounds without prompting.

'It's an excuse to go and congratulate the winner. If they're cute.'

'How have you not died of a sexually transmitted disease or a territorial girlfriend?'

'Condoms? And I sleep with the girlfriends too, obviously. Or the boyfriends. Equal opportunity.'

'You're unreal.' Andy wipes his hands on his jeans. 'And your garbage car is good to go.'

'Front all you want, Hurley, but I know you're not half as prudish as you pretend to be. You act like you don't get significantly more play than Wentz, but I see you. Respect.' Gabe jangles his keys. 'Also it's not a garbage car.'

'Your giant motorized purple penis, then.'

'Andrew Hurley, stop _flirting_ ,' Gabe smirks. 'I just came here for help with my engine -- I'm not gonna let you bend me over the hood without at least taking me out to dinner first.'

He swings into the driver's seat and Andy rolls his eyes.

'For the record,' Gabe adds, 'Joking aside? I absolutely would let you bend me over, with or without dinner. And also for the record, if Mikey wants to race again you should let him.'

'For the record: still no. Not if we were the last two men on earth. But thank you -- about Mikey.'

'Anytime,' Gabe says, twisting the ignition. He winks at Andy. 'Tell Gerard I said hi, by the way.'

'Get out of my garage.'

Gabe blows him a kiss on the way out. 

***

The racing never gets better, but it does get … easier? Or Mikey gets at least a little bit used to it. No one tries to stop him from driving a second or a third time. No one tells him it's too dangerous. So once he has a few more circuits under his belt -- yeah. It's not better, but it's also not the single most terrifying thing he's ever done in his life, and he feels like that counts for something. 

He crowds around Andy's grill with the rest of the crew, having come in dead-last this time around, and he watches Pete cavort off to a different tailgate, all bubbly like he's looking for mischief. 

'You're too skinny to drive that fucking monster,' Frank teases, while he holds out a hand for Andy to pass him a vegan … something. 'That's your problem. You're never gonna win if you're driving two-tons of rusted steel when you weigh, like. What? Sixty pounds soaking wet?' 

He nudges Mikey a little and then grimaces. Andy, without missing a beat, takes his plate and helps him lean up against the truck. Ray, who's on Mikey's other side and couldn't make the save himself, gives Andy a grateful look.

Andy just hands the plate back to Frank. 'Try not to kill yourself while you're lecturing him.'

'I'm just _saying_ , Hurley. He's built like a twig.' Frank squints at Andy. 'You should feed him more.'

'Andy feeds me,' Mikey says softly, because it's true, but it gets lost under the much louder: 'Could you be more of an Italian Mom, Iero?'

Gabe strolls up to their little circle. 'Andy Hurley never lets a guest go hungry,' he says, grinning at Andy like he's expecting something.

Andy rolls his eyes and passes off a plate of food to Gabe. 

'See?' Gabe gives Andy a little 'thank you' of a salute. 'Where's Wentz?'

'Being a pain in someone else's ass for a change,' Andy answers, settling in with his own plate of food, but no sooner has he said it than Pete materializes out of the crowd. 

'I heard that.'

'I don't care.'

Pete gets his arm around Andy's shoulder, but grins at Gabe. 'How're we doing tonight, gentlemen?'

'Iero thinks your platonic lifemate isn't feeding Mikey enough,' Gabe explains.

Frank actually snorts into his drink. 

'Andy feeds everyone,' Pete says to Frank, with a degree of sincerity that Frank makes actually laugh harder, and then start coughing. 

Andy pats him on the back, while Ray supplies: 

'Frank was trying to give Mikey some suggestions for the next race.'

That's … maybe a generous overstatement of the case, but Ray is always generous, and because he's standing the closest to Mikey in their little circle, Mikey scuffs one shoe on the concrete and bumps Ray's shoulder with his own. Ray smiles at him knowingly. Mikey loves him a lot. 

'Mikey,' Frank still sounds like he hasn't completely cleared his throat, but his eyes are glittering, 'we all just want to see you come into your own. Like, don't get me wrong, you've got great form and shit, but you're being too fucking gentle with Old Ironsides.'

Maybe, a few weeks ago, or a few races ago, or whatever, this sort of teasing would've bothered Mikey -- but it doesn't now. It's the way Frank and Pete and Gabe talk to everyone, mostly; a weird, good-natured bravado. It makes him want to smile. 

'I'm _supposed_ to be gentle, right? Or careful,' he jibes back. 'That's what you said. She's old.'

'She still needs _love_ , Mikey.' 

'Or just a good old fashioned deep-dicking,' Gabe chimes wryly.

At his side, Mikey feels Ray hitch just a little, like he's trying to swallow a laugh. 

'Whatever.' Frank flaps a dismissive hand at Gabe. 'The point is: you drive like you're all foreplay and no follow-through. You need to give Miss Ironsides a thrill, seriously -- what's Patrick even teaching you?'

'Nothing fun.' Gabe hops up to sit on the side of the truckbed, and the height difference it lends him with Frank is nothing short of comical. And the disparity was already pretty funny to begin with. 'Patrick's like the definition of no follow-through.'

For one brief second, Pete stiffens, just along the line of his shoulders, like the soft teasing got too sharp, and Mikey wants to go stand closer to him, to … he doesn't really know what. Make it better, maybe. By sheer force of proximity. But then Pete grins, catching up with the joke, and it's like nothing happened. 

'C'mon, Iero,' he edges in. 'Style isn't everything.'

'Says the grid girl.'

Andy, who looks a bit like he's at his wit's end, reaches for the grill's hotplate and walks off to scrape it clean by the side of the verge.

'Look,' Pete carries on, 'if you drove anything besides a bulldozer, you'd know that sometimes technique _also_ matters.'

Frank's face lights up. 'Like you know a damn thing about technique, Wentz. When was the last time you had your hands on the wheel?'

Pete makes a lofty and superior face that doesn't really land. He's smiling too much. 'You never forget,' he says. 'It's like riding a bicycle.'

'Or making love to a woman,' Saporta contributes. He does … something with his hands that's probably meant to be a sensuous gesture or whatever. 'Engines are like ladies. You have to listen to them -- they'll always tell you what's up, if you just listen.'

'You have to caress them,' Pete adds. 

'Exactly. You have to learn how to tell when they want you to treat them gentle and when what they really need is a good hard--'

Andy returns at this moment, before Gabe finishes his thought. He stands at the edge of the little circle of people, hotplate dangling from one hand, and squints at Saporta. 

'What … the hell?'

'Philosophy of Racing 101. Engines are like women,' Pete tells Andy earnestly. 

'No, they're like engines.' Andy doesn't add the _you fucking idiots_ out loud but Mikey can hear it clear as anything. 'As the only one here who knows anything about either, apparently, I promise you, you're wrong.' He pauses for a moment, and then adds, 'Probably because neither of you gets under a hood that often, and I'm gonna guess that you have the same hitrate with skirts.'

He turns around to sling the hotplate back onto the bed of the truck and Saporta draws himself up to his full height. 'I resent the implication that I have never explored skirts. Or the things under them.'

Andy dusts his hands off and just raises an eyebrow. 

Gabe stares him right the fuck back down, but he's grinning. 'This is blatant bisexual erasure and I won't stand for it.'

'I mean, c'mon, there are _some_ similarities--' Frank starts, and Andy's opening his mouth but it's Ray who gets in there first. 

'Oh, did a woman kneecap you too?'

There's a frozen moment and then Frank explodes into laughter, and Mikey smirks into his drink, pulls his phone back out of his pocket. _ray's on fire_ he texts Gerard. _wish u were here to see it_

If Gerard were here this would be perfect, this warm evening with the night drawing down black overhead and the orange glow of the sunset still blushing over the tops of the buildings stretching away as far as the eye can see. The dusty LA darkness is familiar now.

Andy picks up the last few empty cans and chucks them in the cooler to recycle back at h-- at the loft. 

The plasticky millstone of the burner phone presses against Mikey's ass in his back pocket, but he doesn't care. It never goes off on a race night, never, and that's another reason Mikey's starting, just a little bit, to look forward to evenings like this. His guts don't turn to water any more, and everyone's always so fucking happy at races, with Andy's good cooking and Pete's big grin and the music fuzzing through thirty different car radios all tuned to the same station, diffuse pop through dust-sparkling air and the beams of headlights. He's going to get home safe, guaranteed, and he's going to get to sleep through tonight, or at least lie down for all of it -- no alarms, nothing, just a pillow and Gerard to his left and the fitful noises of Pete on the couch downstairs, the blue glow of his laptop screen or, hopefully, the tiny almost-snore he makes when he does actually, finally, doze off. 

'C'mon,' says Andy to him a little while later. Mikey looks up and Pete's attempting to persuade Ray to give him a piggy-back ride. 'Let's get the hot mess home.'

***

'Where are we going?' Gerard asks.

His voice is all soft and thin. Physical therapy does that to him. Mikey empathizes -- he's exhausted, but he turns their car off the main road anyway, heading away.

'Ray's.'

Gerard blinks at him. 'Ray's?'

'I talked to him earlier; he wants us to come hang out.'

It's sort of true. Ray said he and Frank missed having them around, and then offered dinner, like Mikey might not want to come over otherwise. Mikey wanted to hug him right then and there, but he didn't.

'That's sweet of him,' Gerard says quietly, spinning a lock of his bright, bright hair around his finger.

The roots are coming in again; Mikey knows he'll have to help him re-dye it. But he watches the way Gerard smiles, just a little bit, at nothing, and his heart swells. 

Mikey really does like visiting Ray's place. It's cozy; it still smells of spice, the way Mikey remembers from when he lived there. He still feels bad about that. Not living there. Dragging everyone else into his mess. He's so tired from a night of not enough sleep, and he wonders what Ray, or Gerard, or Frank would do if any of them really knew why he stayed out so late. Not for the first time, he thinks about telling them.

It's nice to think that maybe they'd forgive him.

He pulls up in front of Ray's house and helps Gerard to the door. Any dreams of confession slip away. As soon as they're to the door, Frank's already swinging it open, like he was actually sitting there waiting for them, and just like that he's over the threshold, going for Gerard first. When he gets him in a big hug, Frank's still gentle. Frank's always known how to handle Gerard, from the first, though. 

He pushes Gerard into the house and turns to Mikey. Mikey's not a big hugger, not really, but Frank reels him in anyway. 

'You guys need to come out more,' he says. 'Toro's pining. He doesn't know how to cook for two. Or four, actually. I'm gonna be wider than I'm tall if the PT doesn't let me start actually walking places again.'

Mikey pulls away, but not too far, and steers Frank indoors. 'You only eat rabbit food, dude. Doesn't matter how much lettuce you eat, it's still just lettuce.'

'Excuse you,' says Ray from the living room, where Gerard's already sprawled out in one of Ray's brown-velour grandma sofas. 'I feed him a fucking perfectly balanced diet of rabbit food.'

'And potatoes,' says Frank. 'Fucking. Potatoes for days, guys.'

Mikey and Gerard lived here for six months before everything went down, Mikey _knows_ about the potato thing, but he rolls his eyes at Frank anyway. 'You love potatoes.'

Frank pats his -- hard to tell under the seventeen layers, but suspiciously still pretty flat -- belly and says, 'Yeah, I really do.'

Then he has to shift in his seat and prop his leg up, and he winces. 

'How's PT?' Gerard asks him, nudging the footstool that's between them closer to Frank. 'Yours a slavedriver too?'

'Oh my god,' says Frank, lolling his head back against the armchair's high back to look at the ceiling like he's praying for divine help. 'I swear it hurts more every time, and then I get home and I'm like this.' He gestures down himself helplessly. 

Gerard nods, pouting like the drama queen he is. 'I can pick up a coffee cup most mornings now but after PT -- ugh, I feel you. Mikes still has to paint my fingernails for me.'

Frank stretches out and Gerard offers him his hand. 'Yeah, I see, he's better at not getting fucking nail varnish all over your nailbeds than you are.'

'Screw you, motherfucker,' says Gerard cheerfully, pulling his hand back. 'It's the punk aesthetic.'

'Whatever.'

Mikey relaxes into the other side of the couch and lets them bicker. It's good for them, they're both too cooped up. Ray reappears with an honest to god 1960s brown plastic wood-grain-effect tray full of coffee and cookies just as Frank's saying:

'Toro sucks, he won't let me help out in the garage. He won't even let me work on my own fucking bikes.'

'You can work on your bikes when I'm confident I won't come in and find you crushed under one of them,' says Ray calmly, putting a mug of coffee into Frank's hand. 

'But it's my dream death-scene, Toro. It's how I've always wanted to go out, all fucking _Bat out of Hell_ , y'know?'

'Don't you want to go out with the bike at least running? Out on a track?'

'I'm a wounded veteran, I'll take what I can get.'

Ray hands Mikey a coffee and rolls his eyes fondly, like _are you listening to this guy? Can you believe this?_

'Okay, well, feel free to go out in a blaze of glory or whatever, but I'm not looking after you a second time if you fuck up the progress the PT's made. You're on your own.'

'This is just fucking typical,' says Frank, gingerly putting his foot down again. 'You only touch me in my hour of need, and then you threaten to take it away again like some kind of punishment--'

'Who's touching who here?' Joe says, wandering into the room like the smell of coffee summoned him. 

Which -- maybe it did. Mikey can sympathise. Ray makes good coffee. Really good coffee. Gerard's already making eyes at him for a refill, in fact. 

'Ray only puts out when I'm injured,' says Frank, fast as a whiplash. 'I think he's got a fetish.' 

Mikey watches Ray nearly spill coffee on Gerard's lap. 

'Definitely,' says Joe, deftly catching the coffee pot to take it from Ray's hands and pour himself a cup. 'I'm worried about you man.'

Ray's blushing, Mikey thinks, somewhere under his hair, and not looking at Gerard, who's not looking at him either. Gerard's just looking at his coffee mug, smiling softly and laughing a little when Frank starts waxing lyrical about the awfulness of his situation; 'It's like I've been co-opted into one of those freaky 24/7 power exchange things, man, like I can only do what Toro tells me.'

'You might live past thirty-five that way, at least,' Gerard says. 'You know Ray'll keep you safe.'

Ray's definitely blushing now. 

'But at what cost, Gee, what fucking cost? I was born wild. I can't be tamed, and it's cruel that he keeps trying.'

'You're using a coaster,' Joe points out. 'He's got you whipped, man.'

'I'm just too weak to fight back right now. I have to do what he says.'

'This is a super unhealthy relationship you two have. I just want you to know that.' But Joe grins as he says it, dropping onto the other armchair. 

'God. At least someone understands.' 

Frank holds out his mug to Ray, but Ray's perched himself on the footstool Frank abandoned and isn't holding the coffee pot any more. Frank carries on:

'Someone sees the hellscape I live in.'

'Yeah,' Ray says drily, ignoring Frank's waving mug. 'I'm abusing you with three meals a day cooked to your ridiculous dietary requirements, and a clean house.'

'But you don't _romance_ me, Toro. You give me what I need, not what I want.'

Gerard actually fucking _giggles_ at Ray's scandalised expression, and Mikey leans into his side (his good side) and feels how he shifts to watch the back and forth like a man at a tennis match, trying to catch both sides of it. 

'You want romance, Frankie? You should have said.' 

There's something in Ray's voice that makes Mikey glance up. The corner of his mouth is twitching, and he's absolutely about to double down on this. A sensible man would back off, but Frank Iero, in Mikey's experience, has never been a sensible man. 

'Of course I want romance, who doesn't want romance?' Frank demands. 'Fucking -- carry me away, my sweet, hairy prince or whatever.' He throws his arms out like a swooning princess.

Bad move.

Ray scoops him up into a bridal carry, careful of those knees, and absconds with him down the hallway. There's some thudding and a few high pitched giggles and then the back door shuts. Ray reappears, dusting his hands off. 

'Power move,' Joe grins.

'It's gonna take him a minute to remember where I keep the spare key,' Ray says, a little out of breath but mostly unconcerned. 'Who still needed coffee?'

'Me,' says Mikey, because he does. Medically. 

Gerard also gets a second top-off. 

'He doesn't deserve you,' Gerard tells Ray, and Ray's ears go pink. 

'He's just messing around.' 

'I know.' Gerard's mouth wrinkles just so -- almost a smile. 'But he knows he'd be lost without you.' 

Joe looks between the two of them with a carefully neutral expression. Still, a swallowed laugh wrinkles the corners of his eyes. Mikey just wishes the couch would eat him, like some B movie monster, so that he wouldn't have to sit next to his brother and watch this blatant display of … whatever the fuck. 

Not like it isn't cute. It is. It's just also? Flirting -- like honest-to-god-for-real-flirting, not flirting for show -- hasn't really been Gerard's strong suit, historically. He's too sweet. 

Then again, so is Ray.

It's clear Ray doesn't have an answer for Gerard's flattery or Gerard's smile, so he just pulls away while Gerard runs his hand through his hair, and then pulls a lock down to inspect. He makes a moue of disgust at what he sees. 

'I need to dye this shit again,' he says, almost cross-eyed with squinting at it. 'Or grow it out, I guess.' He doesn't sound that keen on the prospect of going back to brown. 

'Bleaching it's gonna suck in Andy's bathroom,' Mikey points out. 

Gerard wrinkles his nose. 'We'll rough it out.'

'He doesn't have a _window_ , Gee. We'll fucking suffocate.' Gerard opens his mouth and Mikey has to stop him. 'And don't tell me you can do it by yourself, you still can't lift that arm above your head.' At Gerard's disheartened look, Mikey softens, remembering how acutely unexciting Gerard's life has gotten. 'It's okay,' he adds softly, 'we'll get a fan or something.'

'You can use my bathroom,' says Ray. 'I mean. I've got an extractor fan and a window. And more space than in Andy's bathroom.'

Gerard's eyes light up. 'That'd be great,' he says, looking across at Ray. He smiles for real this time.

Mikey wishes they still lived here, sometimes. Ray makes Gerard smile. 

'It's no problem,' says Ray. 'Like, whenever, just let me know.'

'I'll need to get some bleach and shit,' Gerard says. 'I think I still have a bottle of dye, I dunno. Mikes, do you remember?'

'Half a bottle,' Mikey tells him, because they did have a bottle but they decided to empty half of it into Gerard's conditioner to try and keep the colour going as long as possible. 'It's cool, I can swing past a pharmacy tomorrow for some more.'

Eventually, as they talk, Frank stumps back in, demanding to know what he missed while he drops into a chair. Ray actually goes to get him ice for his knee.The conversation carries on and the light outside goes yellower and dustier and yellower and dustier til it's clear that some kind of sunset is starting to happen, and Frank's dozing with his feet up like someone's grandpa. 

'You guys are staying for dinner, right?' Ray asks. 'I'm doing veggie lasagne with that soy cheese bullshit, but it tastes pretty good.'

Mikey doesn't even bother raising his eyebrow at Gerard. Of course he wants to stay. 'Sounds good,' he says. 

Ray looks out the window towards the garage, and sighs. 'I gotta put Patrick on the fucking payroll or something, Jesus. I'm pretty sure he's finished like, a day and a half's worth of work in there since this morning.'

'I keep telling you, dude, I have horse tranquilizers if you need them,' Joe says. His eyes glitter at the joke but y'know? Maybe Patrick could use a fucking tranquiliser, if he's been out in the garage all day. 

Dude needs to chill, is Mikey's semi-professional opinion. 

Ray gives Joe a gently reprimanding look. 'I think we'll manage without them.'

'Hey, it's your sanity,' Joe shrugs. 

Ray has sanity in abundance, though. Mikey's known this for almost as long as he's known Ray, and he's especially grateful for it when Joe finally goes to extricate Patrick from the garage. While Ray's actively serving everyone like he took a course in professional hospitality, Frank keeps up cheerful conversation, and Patrick seems … semi-human, almost, by the time he and Joe settle at the table.

'I worked out what was making the knocking noise in that Alfa,' he says, softly, when Ray passes him a plate. 'The rod bearings are shot.'

Ray laughs fondly. 'I told you you didn't have to.'

'I know, but.' Patrick shrugs, and has no follow up.

Joe fills in for him. 'But you make obsessive look good.'

Coming from someone else, Mikey would expect Patrick to bristle at that remark. Instead, he just gives Joe a look, and Joe smiles, fondly, and then Patrick … almost smiles, and Mikey feels a little bit like he's dreaming. 

'Speaking of looking good' -- Frank drops into the seat next to Joe -- 'you remember Suarez, right?'

Joe rolls his eyes. 'Who could forget? I haven't been away that long.'

'Well,' says Frank, grinning evilly and planting his elbows on the table, clearly getting ready to dish some serious dirt. 'You would not _believe_ what he pulled on Carden.'

'Try me.' 

Joe's eyes sparkle again, and Ray's laughing at them, putting the salad servers into the big bowl of mixed greens that he produced out of some pocket dimension like a … vegetable wizard … and sitting down to get at his own plate. 

And Patrick? Patrick's just as intent on Frank's story, intent enough that he forgets himself, and really does smile, when Frank says, 'Drafted him the whole way around, like he just didn't have the power and wanted second, and then? Last corner before the finish? Cut in front and took first by a nose. Fucker had a tank of nos under his hood the whole time.'

'God,' says Joe, huffing a laugh, forkful of lasagna dangling uneaten in front of him. 'Carden must have been pissed as fuck.'

'You have no idea,' Frank says. 'He tried to get Victoria to overturn the result, but hey. Nos isn't out of bounds, no one took any damage, and this is fucking street racing. Rules were made to be broken.'

Joe nods, finally eating that lasagna, but there's something wistful in his eyes. Mikey figures it must kind of suck, hearing about stuff you used to do and the people you used to know, and not be able to join in. According to Ray, Joe spends enough time out in the garage, in the mornings usually, before Patrick staggers out of bed, that it's clear he's just as into cars as the rest of them. 

'Ugh stop,' says Joe, while Frank reenacts the events of the race using all three of Ray's spread of salad dressings and three different water glasses. 'Stop, okay, you're killing me.'

Mikey opens his mouth to say, 'you should come along, next time,' and then shuts it again, because Gerard, next to him, is laughing at Joe's overacting melodrama, and if Joe goes to races again then Gerard will have to sit in Andy's loft, either alone or with Patrick, and Mikey can't decide which of those is worse. 

Frank pats Joe sympathetically and offers to film the next race on his shitty camera phone, and Gerard turns to Patrick and says, 'So that Alfa, is the engine toast or can you replace those rods?'

Patrick makes a rocking motion with his hand and swallows his mouthful of food, then says, 'I think it's early enough yet that the pistons are okay, but I need to strip it down to find out, and that's a big job.'

Gerard smiles at him. He smiles so much more, now, healing bit by bit, and it makes Mikey feel like his heart's going to burst.

'Well, it sounds like you're the one to do it,' Gerard says, and Patrick's ears go fucking _pink._

'I'll try,' he says, shifting in his seat, and it's a weird moment of clarity. Every now and again, Mikey thinks that maybe Patrick isn't a jerk so much as he's just _awkward_. 'You should come hang out,' Patrick offers. 'Like … if you want to. I won't put you to work.' 

Again, his mouth curls up just a little. He's teasing, or at least trying for it, and Gerard's grin gets that much bigger. 

'That'd be cool,' he agrees.

Mikey wants to rest his head on Gerard's shoulder. He also, grudgingly, wants to smile at Patrick for being sweet to Gerard. It's like he paid enough attention in the very short moments when they've interacted to take stock of how Gerard is, how he must be hurting, and how he must be bored, and what Gerard is like as a person to know the right things to offer him. To make it a little bit better.

Not everyone could do that. Most people probably wouldn't even care to.

But Gerard is unguarded and happy at Mikey's side, and Patrick … is quiet. But it's enough, somehow. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, him and Gerard, hanging out. 

Mikey turns his attention back to Frank and Joe who, at this point, have devolved into half-yelling at each other in excitement. He doesn't really know what they're talking about -- drifting, kicks, engines, something about how motocross is just like rally racing and _are you fucking kidding me, Iero; motocross is for crazy fucks with a deathwish and a Yamaha fetish_ \-- but the rhythm of their conversation is warm, and happy, and it makes Mikey feel safe. All over again, he wishes they could stay, and it's a little hard to leave after they're all done and he helps Ray with the dishes. 

'Take good care of yourself, you little fuck,' Frank announces, walking them to the door. 

'I'm taller than you,' Mikey points out.

Frank hugs him so tight he almost can't breathe. 'Irrelevant.' 

Ray, once Frank's … done, also steps in with much gentler hugs, one for him and one for Gerard, and Mikey's a little glad that they aren't awkward again, mostly so he doesn't have to watch them being awkward (but also because Gerard looks so fucking happy, and awkwardness might ruin that).

Joe just offers an easy smile. 'See you soon,' he says. Mikey marvels at how he seems to have slipped into the rhythm of everything so effortlessly. 

Patrick appears to have vanished back into his shell, because he doesn't say anything at all. Mikey just lets Gerard step out the door first and digs the keys out of his pocket. He's halfway to the car when he hears footsteps jogging up behind him. 

'Mikey.'

He turns. Patrick just stands there, in the middle of the driveway, almost … glaring? Frowning, at the very least. Mikey can hear Gerard pause at his back.

'Get home safe,' Patrick says. 

It sounds like he's saying it to both of them, but it's Mikey that he's really looking at, or frowning at, or whatever that weird expression is. 

Gerard opens the passenger door of the car. Mikey forces himself to nod at Patrick. 

'Uh. I will?' he says, and gets behind the wheel before the awkwardness develops legs and sentience and eats him alive.


	7. Chapter 7

Andy's in the middle of replacing the spark plugs carefully in Leighton's Impala when his phone goes off loudly in his pocket -- a text message. He seats the last plug, wipes his hands off on the seat of his shorts, and reaches for the phone. 

It's Frank. _sure u arent coming? Rays been cooking chili all day. bring went z or we mihgt all die of overeating_

Andy's still has some leftovers from the last race he was planning on frying up and watching Pete pick at, but that whole concept is … not very appealing, really. The Ways are over at Toro's again and, for all that it's been cramped around the loft with them in residence, when they're gone the place feels quiet. 

He drops the hood on the Impala and goes back out to the living area. 

Pete's sprawled, lacklustre, over the couch, swallowed up in a red hoodie with sleeves that flop over his hands, but barefoot. And in a pair of shorts that only barely graze the midsection of his thighs. Andy kicks a little at his feet til he takes his earbuds out and looks up from his laptop. 

'What's up?'

'Ray's making chili for dinner,' Andy says, and watches Pete's face … not fall, but set, like he's forcing the vaguely-smile-related expression that his face naturally settles into, his resting face, to stay where it is even though his heart is clearly sinking. 

Andy resists the urge to sigh, or to fold up on the couch with him and try and hug a real smile back onto his face. 

'You don't have to come, there're leftovers in the fridge.'

'Not really hungry,' Pete says. 'But thanks.'

Andy knows he could tell Pete to get up; he could insist that they were both going, and that they're going to also be civil when they get there, and Pete would do it. He'd bitch about it, but he'd put his shoes on and get in Andy's truck. Somehow, Pete got it into his head that he should do what Andy tells him. It's a particular, precious, and fragile kind of trust. 

And looking at Pete, half-drowning in his hoodie, Andy remembers how important it is not to abuse that trust. 

'We're both invited,' he says. 'I'm gonna go. But if you're not feeling it, that's okay.'

Pete just shrugs, so Andy goes to change out of his grease-stained work gear and into something he could feasibly wear inside Toro's house without worrying about how to keep the furniture clean. While he's kicking on clean jeans, he reflects on the fact that it's a vain fucking hope that Pete and Patrick might reconcile if they can't even get within three blocks of each other. 

Pete has his earbuds back in when Andy walks past him and heads for the door.

But then, as he's putting his seatbelt on, truck engine warming up, Pete comes jogging out, in actual jeans, and pulls open the passenger side door, dragging his fingers through his hair. 

'I'll come,' he announces. 

He doesn't look at Andy until after he's gotten the words out, and his sunshine smile is back but it doesn't crinkle the corners of his eyes, so it just makes him look on edge.

Andy slings an arm around his shoulder and squeezes, just for a second, before turning in his seat to back the truck out of the garage.

By the time they pull up to Ray's house, Pete's smile is all gone again, and he looks like he's working not to ask Andy just to take him back home. He doesn't, though. He just throws the door open and follows Andy up the drive, and … slinks into Ray's house like an alleycat on the scrounge.

Frank, who opened the door for them, raises one of his eyebrows at Andy and Andy just shrugs. He's not responsible for Pete, despite all appearances. 

'It smells amazing,' he says instead, and Frank's grin is immediate. 

'I know. Toro bitches about the dietary requirements but you should see the kid's face light up when he finds a new recipe blog. He's been fucking 'double double toil and trouble' over his stewpot all day and he won't let me taste-test it.'

Andy snorts and follows Frank to the kitchen. He notices that there's maybe a little less limp in Frank's gait than there was last time Andy saw him. That's a plus, at least. 

Ray is, as advertised, essentially hunched over an enormous stockpot on the stove and has fifteen or so jars of spices on the counter beside him. Another plus: Andy likes that he's gotten to know Toro well enough over this last month and a half that his first thought, upon seeing Ray, is _typical._

By the kitchen's far corner, Gerard stands propped up against the wall, clearly trying to not take up space. His hair is freshly dyed, not quite dry yet, and he's watching Ray from under the crimson fall of it. Frank barrels in, and Andy has to stay in the doorway because there's really no room left once Frank starts in opening drawers. 

'Yo, Toro,' he says. 'Lemme help you, dude.'

'I don't need help, Frankie, I'm fine. I'm good. We're on track.'

'He won't let me help either,' says Gerard. 

'You should both go and sit in the living room,' Ray sighs, and it sounds like it's not the first time tonight he's said it. 'I'm fine, and you need to rest up, Frank, you've been walking a lot today.'

Frank goes for the fridge, and starts going through it. 'Bullshit.' He leans on the door, though, taking weight. Stubborn as a bull. Also typical. 'Aren't these bell peppers going in? Toro? Toro--'

Ray actually turns. 'For god's sake, Frank. Go and fucking sit.' He points at the kitchen counter where, yes, there're two stools that look like they were repurposed from the garage, splashed with paint and one with a broken cross-strut. Ray puts a couple of green bell peppers, a knife and a cutting board down in front of Frank when he sits down. 'Just. Chop these, and for the love of Christ don't cut your fucking fingers off, okay?'

The kitchen subsides into the noise of bubbling food and the _sschink-sschink_ sound of a good knife slicing vegetables, which means Andy can pick up the sounds of Pete and Joe laughing in the living room. Mikey must be out there too, because he keeps hearing the occasional 'Mikeyway', even though he can't actually hear Mikey himself saying a single word. 

Third 'typical' of the night, then.

Mikey's like that, Andy's noticed. He's not like Patrick, who generally wants to be quiet _and_ alone. Mikey wants quiet, but with company who -- well. Pete and Joe are certainly not quiet company. 

Gerard starts to move like he's making his way to join them. 

'Hey,' Ray says softly, and Gerard halts. 'You need anything?'

Gerard actually looks for a second like he can't remember how to speak. Then: 'Oh, um. Water, I guess?'

Without missing a beat, Ray slips away from the stove to fill a glass and pass it to Gerard. They have a whole full-count moment where they just kind of smile at each other before Gerard turns for the living room again, water in hand.

At the counter, Frank sucks his lips between his teeth and doesn't laugh, smile, or make a comment. Andy thinks he might have more success in trying to be graceful if he didn't _look_ like he was trying to be graceful, but. 

Frank Iero. Andy wouldn't say he's known for his subtlety. He does make up for it in aggressive loyalty, though, and Andy has always liked that about him.

He slips onto the other ramshackle counter stool and knocks Frank's elbow with his own as if to say _it's sweet, don't ruin it_. Frank just smirks at the cutting board instead.

Three chopped peppers, Frank's definitively unsliced fingers, a steaming pot of chili, and forty-five minutes later they're all settling around Ray's table, and Ray won't let anyone do anything except sit and wait to be served.

'--yeah but, first of all: you're full of shit and that circuit's a deathtrap,' Joe says, dropping the seat beside Pete. 'Second of all: no one would _suggest_ that circuit in the first place.'

'Yeah, well, Victoria did.' Pete reaches for the bowl that Ray's passing him. 'I'd like to see you try to argue with her.'

'Fuck off, who agreed to do that? No one's going to show up to the fucking starting line.'

'Trohman _you'd_ fuck with that shit, don't even play,' says Frank, grinning. 

Andy settles into the chair on Pete's other side and nods a _thank you_ to Ray in lieu of trying to speak over the peanut gallery. Tucked close to Gerard, Mikey watches Frank and Pete and Joe's back and forth with a faint, if bemused, smile.

'Iero, you can't use a circular definition to make your point,' Joe contends, and Frank just smirks.

'It's still a point, and I'm right, and you know it.'

'The circuit's still a terrible idea; corner sequence is a liability.'

Just as Ray's filling the last bowl, Patrick materializes from … the garage, Andy presumes, knowing Patrick, and at Andy's side Pete stiffens, fractionally. But then Patrick's sitting, and not glaring, beside Ray and, glory be, he actually makes _eye contact_ with Pete. And Pete smiles.

Nothing stunning, but it's there, and it's real, and it's delicate as glass.

Patrick … nods. Or something.

Before Andy can give Pete a shoulderbump in solidarity, Pete turns back to Joe.

'Again: feel free to file all complaints with Miss Asher,' he says. 'I'm sure she'll be thrilled to disregard you outright.'

Joe pulls a sour face and Frank adds, with a mouth half-full of chili: 'Besides, Saporta's driving, so it can't be that much of a tangle.'

Joe actually snorts.

'Okay, you can back the fuck right up.' Pete points his spoon at Frank, but he's grinning.

'Why, because I'm calling it like it is on your boyfriend?'

'Fuckbuddy, actually,' Joe interjects, helpfully.

'Whatever.' Frank waves a hand. 'That stupid toy car can't corner for shit, Wentz, so get out of my face.'

'Okay, Mr. Motocross.' Pete's practically bouncing in his seat, now, and Andy feels a knot unwind in his chest. 'Speaking of corners, how's your knee doing?'

Frank practically preens. 'Excellent. Susan only made me cry once this week.'

'Kinky.'

'Kinkier than you, yeah.'

Andy glances across the table at Ray who just looks helpless, but amused. 

'Could we catch up on any _other_ circuits?' Joe cuts in. 'Not that I don't love hearing about your imaginary sex lives.'

'Mikey's driving the one next week,' Frank says, suddenly all puffed up with pride. 'Getting better every time.'

He isn't wrong, Andy has to agree. Not that Mikey's stellar, but it really is sweet to see him grow a little more confident about something that clearly scared him so much at the outset. Right now he just looks shy at Frank's praise -- but Andy's been learning to read him over all this time.

It's a sweet, happy shy. He doesn't quite smile, but his mouth twitches just a bit.

'Like seriously,' Frank insists. 

'He is.' Patrick says it so softly that for a minute Andy thinks everyone else might have missed it, but then Pete glances at him. 

'Yeah,' Pete agrees. 

He's practically glowing, and Patrick does smile this time, oh so softly. Not necessarily at Pete, and not necessarily at Mikey, but it is a smile.

Mikey looks about as proud of himself as Andy has ever seen him. He thinks of the way Mikey first informed him that he held that fucking nightmare of a car through an oversteer, and _he_ feels a little bit proud, too. Of Mikey. And of Patrick, maybe, for getting over himself enough to help Mikey. And of Pete, for showing up to be part of this at all.

If Pete and Patrick don't flipswitch from this into wanting to kill each other, and if they can all keep Mikey from killing himself on the track, then maybe that sliver of hope that things could be okay isn't so much in vain after all.

***

Dinner is miraculously not as stressful as Patrick thought it would be. Even though he didn't expect Pete to be there -- and even though a cold feeling made his heart skip a beat to see Pete sitting there at the table -- it's still nice, all of a sudden, to see how Pete gets when he's happy. Patrick supposes he never really forgot what that was like. He just never thought he'd see it again. 

The cold in his chest thaws a little more, every time Pete smiles, and somehow it doesn't matter that he's smiling at or about Mikey.

While everyone else keeps chattering on, proud of Mikey and boisterous over bullshit stunts pulled on the track, Patrick just looks down at his bowl, and lets the laughter wash over him. Some days, he wonders if he's stupid. Or maybe just selfish. 

'I'll be right back,' Mikey says, softly, by the time they're coming up on dessert.

The conversation bubbles over, filling the space that would have otherwise been left in his absence. Patrick fidgets, quiet and maybe a little bit guilty, and watches Pete watch Mikey leave, each of them out of the corner of their eye. 

Ray gets up to get the dessert and Joe, who gets to his feet before either Frank or Gerard can, goes to help him. Patrick decides to go too, and. Well. Really, really, he _means_ to go help get bowls or spoons or clear the table, or something, but once he's in the hall, he catches the movement of a slender silhouette in the porch light, and goes out to the front step instead. 

Just beyond the door, Mikey lurks like some kind of crepuscular apparition, leaning up against the side of the house like he needs it to take his weight. He looks exhausted. 

He always looks exhausted. 

He half turns at the sound of the door. 

'Sorry,' Patrick breathes out of reflex.

Mikey just blinks at him, his bottom lip red-bitten, like he was just standing out here, feeling anxious. 

'It's okay.'

Except it isn't. There's a different _sorry_ still stuck in the back of Patrick's throat, and the longer he looks at Mikey, the more it feels like it's going to choke him. 

'Mikey,' he hazards, but has no follow up. 

Still, Mikey answers _yeah?_. He's a long, thin caricature in orange and dusty black, mostly shadow and what little highlight the weak porch light can throw. Like his brother, he looks breakable, and he isn't even injured. 

The silence stretches while Patrick tries to find his voice. He can hear the blood in his own ears. He's so fucking bad at putting words together for things like this and he's not used to being in the wrong.

But. 

He fucked up. Has been fucking up. Has been contributing, maybe-probably, to that exhaustion eroding Mikey's posture. And suddenly, right now, it seems important that Mikey know that Patrick knows that. 

Mikey's almost-smiles at dinner should be worth more than just awkward silence -- or, at least, that's what Patrick tells himself while he stares at the ground, jaw clenched tight.

'Frank was right, you know,' he manages. 'You really are doing better and I … haven't done the best job helping you. I'm sorry for -- for being impatient. You're trying, I know you are.'

It's not great, as apologies go. It clangs like a dropped spanner, and when he chances a glance at Mikey, his expression has gone all thin and tight and confused, as if to say _you really came out here for that?_

But he doesn't leave. He doesn't laugh, or … say it isn't good enough, or sincere enough, or something. He doesn't even ask why this is coming up _right now_ , and thank god, because Patrick isn't sure he'd have an answer for that one beyond 'I saw you' and 'it felt like I should.' 

Mikey just stays where he is, and looks Patrick in the eye, quiet and unsure but not going anywhere. 

'You helped -- you're helping,' is what he eventually says, as stilted as Patrick was. He pushes himself off the wall to stand on his own two feet. His shoulders still droop. 

'I can do better.' 

Mikey very obviously doesn't know what to do with that either -- he just watches Patrick from the bluish hollows of his eyes, and Patrick wishes he could fix that too. 

Finally, he nods, and Patrick doesn't know how to parse that. 

'Let's get dessert,' Mikey mumbles.

Just like that, he's gone, and Patrick has nothing to do but follow.

***

It does get easier after that night, like a thin sheet of ice, suddenly broken up. There's something clear underneath.

Patrick's never been much for making friends, he knows that, blessed as he is to live at the cross-section of 'shy' and 'particular' -- but still. His time with Mikey unstiffens, even if it's still quiet. He clings to the memory of Mikey's first race. He can be gentle, he decides, or at the very least, gentler. It's not Mikey he's angry with in the first place.

Something about his affect must change, because something changes in Mikey, too. He still looks exhausted all the time -- so much so that Patrick pauses to worry occasionally. It's like looking at a smokescreen picture of the sky; like he'll vanish if Patrick talks or breathes. But every once in a while, it's Mikey who breathes deep and almost smiles, proud of himself for carrying the car at a speed over 80MPH.

It's … sweet, almost. 

Patrick tries to hold on to that, too.

It's hard, on race nights. Or it isn't -- it's just that the race nights are hard, and Patrick, on this night, like every other race night, has to spend it alone and away from the track, and trying not to think about … everything.

'Just gonna stay out here all night?'

Patrick can't see Joe from under the Alfa, but he can see his feet. And he'd know Joe's voice anywhere. 

'Aren't you supposed to be at Hurley's?' he asks, twisting out from under the car.

Joe's smile is a little bit mischievous. His hair's all undone tonight, so it falls in his face, lending him a further 'getting into trouble' air. 

'I brought Gee back here,' he says. 

Patrick makes a face at _Gee_ , because. Okay, maybe it makes sense that Gerard and Joe have gotten close, but still. It's weird. 

Joe ignores him and carries on: 'Hurley doesn't have anything fun in his fucking vegan puritan sanctum; we're ordering hotwings and fries. And I'm stealing Iero's beer.'

'You need me for all that?'

'Sometimes I enjoy your company, actually.' He kicks Patrick's ankle, gently. 'You want me to get anything for you?'

Patrick's heart squeezes. 'Wings are fine,' he says, taking Joe's hand when he offers it and lurching to his feet. 

'C'mon.' Joe throws an arm around his shoulders. 'Gerard's all excited to hang out too.'

'He told you that?'

Joe steers them both towards the house. 'No, but he's not exactly hard to read.'

Joe isn't wrong. Gerard is the literal opposite of his brother, and as such, is an open book. He vacillates between his sweet shyness and a jittery tweakiness that Patrick chalks up to nerves about Mikey and about the race in general. Patrick can empathize.

Even still, by the time their food arrives, Joe and Gerard have settled into a happy back and forth about fucking Anthrax of all things. Patrick just laughs under his breath and steals a swig from Joe's beer.

The hours pass without much event, except for Joe or Gerard's phones bleeping with a text message alert from time to time. Patrick almost relaxes until Gerard looks at his phone and sits a bit straighter and says, 'I think they're coming home.'

'It's early, isn't it?' Joe asks.

Gerard nods, his bottom lip caught between his teeth.

Joe's phone, half hidden under a sticky napkin, chimes, and Patrick reaches for it before Joe does. 

'Here.'

'Thanks.' Joe's thumb flits over the screen. He frowns, but looks otherwise unconcerned. 'Hurley just says everyone had to call it early. Someone spun out at the finish line.' Gerard's eyes get all big, but Joe adds: 'Mikey's okay though.'

It feels like a cold comfort right up until the moment when everyone's actually back at Toro's, and Patrick can see with his own two eyes that Mikey is, in fact, okay. 

Physically, at least. Physically he's okay. But he comes into the kitchen pretty much sandwiched between Toro and Iero, and if that wasn't enough to ping Patrick's radar, then Toro's hand softly on Mikey's shoulder, guiding him into the kitchen, and Pete's … entire everything … as he steps into the room after them would have tipped him off. Pete's eyes find Patrick's immediately and then he looks away, and he hovers while Ray steers Mikey into Gerard's orbit. 

Mikey's dead-eyed and quiet, and he just nods stiltedly when Frank says, 'Seriously, Mikes, you did great, any of these guys would tell you the same. Right?'

Ray nods. He's already put the kettle on and is rummaging through cupboards trying to find enough mugs for everyone. Patrick can hear the sound of Andy's truck pulling up outside. 

'You did a really good job,' Ray says, twisting over his shoulder to smile at Mikey. 'You should sit down,' he adds, and Frank pulls out his stool for Mikey but Mikey basically pushes Frank onto it instead, with Gerard's help. Frank scowls but stays put. 

Andy pushes into the throng, managing to wriggle in between Mikey and Pete, thanks to where the doorway is, which puts Pete in Patrick's space, and Pete's fucking _vibrating_ , and Mikey's still staring at his own feet. 

Patrick clears his throat, but Joe gets there before him. 

'So, how was the race?' 

'Well, no one died,' is Frank's opening salvo. 

Ray's shoulders tense and slump in an 'oh god here we go' kind of a way, over where he's dumping sugar and milk and almond milk and everything else everyone takes or doesn't take in their tea into the various mugs. Next to Patrick, Pete tenses. 

'Honestly it was -- you should have been there, Trohman, it was fucking drama from beginning to end, oh my god.' Frank's already waving his arms around. 'Carden wasn't happy about the track layout, and wouldn't shut up about it but wouldn't pull his fucking car out of the race, either, so Vicky had to get involved, and you know how that usually works out.'

Joe laughs. 'Not well if they're giving her shit.' 

'Yeah, well, not well for anyone, because that meant start got delayed--'

'By fifteen minutes,' Pete interjects, and Patrick resists the urge to suck a breath through his teeth. Fifteen minutes is a long time when you're relying on the grace of whoever's manning the police scanner to keep everyone on the streets and out of the lockup. 'We had a perfectly good fucking window and we nearly lost it.'

'Exactly!' says Frank. 'Anyway by the time Vicky finally got him to shut the fuck up and drive, the light was for shit, because apparently the sun goes down or whatever, so Pete finally got the go ahead to drop the flag the glare was awful, and it was just carnage.'

'Pedicone had yet another piss-poor start off the line because he's got a slow foot,' Andy says. 'He nearly took out Leighton on the inside line because her Impala's a land-yacht that can't turn without a week's notice, but she got past him and he dropped about three places.' 

'So it was a normal night,' Joe remarks, laughing a little. 'C'mon guys, a late start and someone who can't short-shift doesn't make a compelling melodrama. What else you got?'

'Yeah, well,' says Frank. 'So the field sorted into two packs, by about halfway, and Lazzara was in the lead, with Rickley breathing down his fucking neck. Which is fine, okay, it's fucking fine, except, well. Adam spun out, fucking idiot, clipped a manhole cover and I dunno, I guess it had some water or something on it, or oil, or whatever, because he fishtailed like crazy, t-boned a bus shelter, and ended up facing the wrong way in the middle of the road, right in the way of the back markers. How he didn't take Rickley out I'll never know.'

Mikey's still looking at his feet, his face a sickly ivory. 

'Fuck,' says Gerard, and he's almost as pale as his brother. 'Mikey--'

'Mikey did great,' Frank adds. He touches Mikey's elbow. 'Cut right around the wreck like a fucking pro, Gee, you should have seen him, you'd be so goddamn proud.' Belatedly, he appends, 'Adam's fine, by the way; he didn't even get whiplash. Vicky made Suarez take him to the ER to get checked, but he was swearing enough about the state of his car that I don't really think there's anything wrong with him. The important point is Mikey came fifth, okay, because he got a good line out of the freaking obstacle course and took Ryland on the inside after that. Not only did he not end up part of the pile up, okay, but he made up places.' 

Frank's so proud of him, you can see it from space, but Mikey looks like he's going to be sick, and Pete's leg keeps twitching, Patrick can feel it, and Patrick -- he can't laugh about a fucking wreck story like Iero can, even if everyone walked away safe. He's seen enough wrecks where people had to be stretchered out for the whole thing not to be funny at all. Frank's got that motocross black humour about it, and that's fine -- bikes make you fatalistic, as far as Patrick can tell -- but Patrick. 

Patrick … worries, okay. He'd like to have a short talk with Lazzara about how worried he is, but he's not sure he could do it with grace -- the mere thought makes his fists clench. One teeth-gritting second passes, and then all of a sudden Pete's shoulder bumps Patrick's.

He thinks it's a mistake at first. Or just the inevitable effect of Pete's tension, like he's fidgeting to get it out of his body. But Patrick glances at him before he can catch himself and Pete's got his head tilted just enough to offer Patrick a quick look. And his shoulder stays where it is.

'You could have led with "everyone's fine",' Joe points out.

Frank makes a face. 'I _said_ no one died.'

'So those are completely not the same thing, but okay, crazy.'

But Frank's all enthusiastic jitters, and gentle pats to Mikey's shoulder. Joe's jibes roll right off him. 'You really did great, though. Lazzara wasn't thinking and you … knew what to do.'

Mikey nods, but doesn't say a single thing. He doesn't curl into Gerard, either, but he may as well, for how obvious it is that he wants to. Gerard bumps his knuckles to Mikey's and Patrick has to swallow a bitter clot of rage. There's no good reason to think Lazzara was fucking with Mikey -- he was running first. You stop giving a fuck about playing chicken when you're trying to take the line. But logic, in this case, does nothing to keep Patrick's thoughts from skittering out, and iterating worst case scenarios. 

He has to suck in a tight breath through his nose.

'Mikey, go sit down,' Andy directs, in a tone that brooks no argument. 

Mikey goes, and Gerard follows, and Joe moves enough to help Ray and Andy with the myriad mugs. Frank looks like he's also about to try to help, but Ray plants both hands on his shoulders and physically turns him in the direction of the living room. 

'Fucking sit down, you maniac.'

Patrick supposes he should follow, the weird ringing in his ears notwithstanding. He doesn't though. Not until Pete's fingers pass over his wrist and squeeze, gently. When Patrick looks at him this time, Pete looks back without hesitation. He's as open a book as Gerard, except Patrick's known him forever and a half, and knows how to read him better because of it.

They don't have to say anything to each other, this time. The _I know, I really know_ transmits like a light signal, and Patrick wouldn't be able to put a sentence together even if he wanted to.

He just lets Pete slip away, to go sit with everyone else, and sidles up to help Ray and Andy and Joe with the drinks.

***

Pete would like to imagine that he's mostly honest with himself, which is sometimes good and sometimes exhausting.

Like now? It's exhausting.

He'd be lying if he said he's come to dread race nights -- he doesn't. He loves them. They're something to do and the last bastion of fucking normalcy in his life right at this moment, so no, he doesn't dread them. But he'd also be lying if he said he didn't hope that, with every race night, Mikey would suddenly decide to call it quits. Because he really, really does.

Except so does everyone else, and at least half of that 'everyone else' has more or less said this to Mikey's scared-any-yet-somehow-still-disaffected face, and Pete doesn't think that an _extra_ person saying it is going to convince Mikey to change his mind at this point. So instead he keeps trying to be cheerful and encouraging and now he's exhausted.

And he's more exhausted watching Mikey be exhausted.

Because the kid walked back into Andy's loft at three in the fucking morning again with a thin 'hi' when he saw Pete was still up, and now he's out here on a race night, looking like he's trying to remember which way is up.

Pete … kind of wishes Patrick were here. He's not sure why. Maybe so someone could share his specific anxiety. Because you know how shared anxiety makes it better?

He scoots up to Mikey who's just hovering around the Trans Am like he's waiting for something to make sense. He bumps Mikey's foot with his own.

'Buck up, Mikeyway,' he grins. 'It's almost time to pull this beast out and start shit-talking.'

Mikey never shit-talks. Not on the starting line, not after, not ever -- but he smiles a little at the joke and that makes Pete feel a bit more buoyant.

'I know,' Mikey murmurs. He shifts on his feet. 'Pete?'

'Yeah?'

'You'll be okay, right?'

'I -- what?' 

Pete sometimes feels like he's playing a mind-reading game with Mikey. The dude doesn't say much as it is, and when he does, it's sort of like he said five things in his head before he got to the thing he said out loud, and Pete has no context.

'If. When I … ' Mikey chews on his bottom lip. 'Whenever I stop doing this, you'll be okay, right?'

Pete can only stare, because all of a sudden there's a high, bright, ringing sound tingeing the edges of his hearing. He thinks of how Mikey looked, clambering out of his car after Lazzara's spin-out.

'You want to stop?' 

Mikey winces. 'I mean. Not right now, but -- I just. When I do … it'll be okay?'

'Mikey, you … ' Pete tries to string his thoughts together in an order that makes sense and also doesn't make him sound like he's overly invested in this situation to an inappropriate degree. It's difficult. He leans back against the Trans Am. 'You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, okay?'

Mikey just nods, and looks like he doesn't believe Pete at all.

'Yeah,' he says, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt in a way that makes Pete nervous.

'Mikey.' Pete catches his wrist without thinking about it, because he wants to make … something … better. Except now he's just basically holding Mikey's hand, and Mikey is somehow crowded too close, and there's nowhere to go because the Trans Am is at Pete's back.

Mikey blinks, and doesn't pull away. 'Um.'

And Pete feels the way his fingers twitch, and …

_It's going to be okay_ is what Pete wants to say. What he should say, maybe, because even if he's shit at lying to himself, he's pretty good at making other people smile. But his voice is caught somewhere in his throat, and instead he just leans in until his mouth touches Mikey's, and something heavy and sharp comes loose in his chest. 

As kisses go, it's nothing spectacular. It's barely even a _kiss_ , proper, but Mikey sucks in a soft breath against Pete's mouth and Pete snaps back to himself enough to remember that this is the actual worst fucking idea, and selfish to boot. 

He jerks back so fast he almost bangs an elbow on the side of the car.

'Pete,' Mikey murmurs. He's still very close to Pete, or they're too close to each other, and he's very warm.

And for no fucking good reason at all, Pete thinks of Patrick, chewing on a thousand unsaid things in Ray's kitchen not so many nights ago. He forces a crooked smile.

'Wrong kind of encouragement,' he manages. 'Sorry.'

It's supposed to be a joke, but doesn't sound funny at all, and Mikey doesn't laugh, so Pete just twists out from between him and the car. He has a job to do anyway. He doesn't look back, and he doesn't look at Mikey when he pulls up to the grid with the other drivers.

Nothing dramatic happens that night, except that Mikey takes third and Frank practically has a Proud Dad meltdown. Pete takes it as an excuse to keep on the sidelines during Andy's barbecue.

Let everyone else be excited.

Mikey doesn't really look in his direction. And Pete only shrugs when Andy cuts him a 'what the fuck did you do' glance, and is thankful that there's nothing else Andy would do or say, at least until they have a moment alone. 

So he bounces around the party to make sure they _don't_ have a moment alone. He crashes the winner's circle -- is it crashing, though, when you're the grid girl and therefore part of the machinery of the night? -- to grab Saporta and shove his arms up high. Well, actually, all he can do is push at a bicep until he lifts the arm himself -- Pete can't quite clasp hands with Gabe _and_ do the We Are The Champions pose unless someone brings him a box or he singlehandedly effects the third comeback of the 1960s platform heel. 

In the end, Gabe catches his wrist, bends him over backwards and tries to go in for a full Gone With The Wind, but Pete, skittish, ducks out of his way and slaps him on the ass instead. 

'Nuh-uh, hands off the goods.' 

'But I won,' Saporta pouts. 'Where's my prize?'

'I'm not on the menu tonight, sorry.'

'Saving yourself for someone special?' Gabe asks, laughing. 'Ooh la la.'

'Maybe I have standards.' 

But there's too much space between Pete and Gabe, now, and Pete doesn't like it, so he stops running and Gabe catches him. 

'Never had them before, princess,' Gabe points out, arms around Pete's shoulders. But he doesn't try for another kiss and lets Pete snug up against him instead. He's warm and he smells, at this point, of sweat and alcohol. 

It quiets the weird humming in Pete's veins.

Pete hangs around a bit longer, and Gabe never quite moves enough that Pete can't stay pressed close to his side. But the conversation starts to turn to a post-mortem of the race and then he decides to go harass Vicky instead, rather than hear track-talk and not be able to play along. 

Vicky has her usual command center in the back of her truck, and Pete rolls up with a vodka something or other sticky and sweet for her, because he's got manners - but she's not paying attention to him. He tries a couple of more usual greetings but all she does is sort of flap her hand at him, like _go away boy_ , which is just rude, okay. So he goes in for the kill with something he knows she'll at least react to:

'How are things here on the fair Isle of--' 

'If the next word out of your mouth begins with L, I'm replacing you at the next race with Pelissier,' she cuts him off, raising a warning eyebrow.

Leighton, sitting beside her, snorts.

'Ugh,' says Pete. 'At least pick someone with a sense of timing. Or style.'

'Like you know about either, Wentz,' Leighton smirks. 

'I could teach you a thing or two.'

'Can you flirt somewhere else?' Vicky snarks.

She's feigning annoyance, but Pete knows she isn't actually bothered. She is however too busy dealing with the side bets and the clean-up and the constant updates on the police scanner to be any fun right now, so Pete leaves her and Leighton to handle that, and slinks back only to find Andy's pickup, Ray's truck, and the Trans Am all gone. 

It's not unusual for Pete to be the last man standing at a party, it's just normally he doesn't even bother trying to find the others when he wants to go home, because he wouldn't normally be thinking about heading home for another few hours -- but fuck. Now that he has no distractions, he's so tired. He checks his phone, and yeah, there's a text from Andy. Looks like he missed packdown by about twenty minutes. 

He looks back over his shoulder. He could go back to the party, but it just seems like work, to pull his smile back on. And tonight's course isn't even that far from Andy's loft. He pulls the hoodie from around his waist and shrugs it on over his thin shirt, and ducks out through the boundary ring of cars. 

The noise recedes, the lights dim til it's just Pete and the moon, desperately trying to make itself known beyond the dark-umber haze of what's supposedly the night sky, except this is LA and it's never exactly dark. Streetlights make intermittent islands, weak and buzzing, and Pete kind of skirts the pools they cast, head down. 

He resists the urge to rub at his mouth. 

He's such a fucking moron. 

Mikey's car is still parked four spots down from Andy's place, he notes as he kicks his way past. No date tonight, or whatever it is he does when he goes out. Pete makes sure to try and not let his keys jangle too loud as he lets himself into the loft, then, because if Mikey's not out, he's probably still awake. He and Pete have that in common. 

Pete drops onto the sofa and spreads out, drowsing a little. He hears Andy come in at some point and pretends to be asleep. After that, the loft's all quiet, blue-tinged darkness, punctuated only by soft breathing sounds. Only the occasional creak of the futon that wasn't designed to have two bodies on it, and Andy shifting and intermittent snorting in his sleep, break the quiet spell. It's warm, and gentle, and soporific and Pete should be able to fucking drift on it but no. 

He bites his lip and rolls over, mashing his face into the pillowcase like it'll erode away a feeling that isn't actually a feeling, just a residual guilt made solid or something. And that doesn't help because what, is he gonna Desdemona himself? End it all by judicious application of pillow? Get over yourself, Wentz. You don't get to go all _killing myself, to die upon a kiss_ over a peck on the lips when you've literally hooked up with so many people that you can't remember all their names.

He tosses onto his back again and sighs, reaching for his laptop. 

By the time the piss-and-vinegar colour of dawn starts to seep in around the blinds, Pete's back is fucking killing him, so he gets up and slumps onto a kitchen stool, still headphone-tied to his laptop. He doesn't even know what he's watching any more.

Someone snaps the earbuds out of his ears with one jerk at the cord underneath his chin. It's Andy, because of course it's Andy. No one else would do something like that. His body language is stern but his expression is something sadder than Pete wishes it was. 

'Okay,' Andy says softly. 'We're going to talk now, because I've seen you run yourself into the ground over shit like this before, and I'm really not planning on letting it go on til the day you decide not to pick yourself up again.'

Pete scrubs at his eyes and hits the spacebar until the movie stops. 'I'm -- fuck off Hurley, it's ass o'clock and I'm too tired for this shit.'

Andy pushes the laptop shut and sits on the stool next to Pete. 'I don't give a fuck. I also don't give a fuck about who you do and don't decide to sleep with, Pete. I'm not even saying this has gone too far but it's gone … pretty far. Even you can't keep denying that.' He sighs. 'I need you to tell me, right now, exactly how much you've hook-line-and-sinkered yourself and how much of a mess it's going to be if we all make it out of this alive and you find out he's just not that into you.'

Pete can't help the wince, but Andy's right, he's always fucking right about Pete, it's his worst character flaw. And it's not like it isn't fairly obvious that Mikey's not … whatever Pete is. About whatever's between them.

'I'm not kidding,' Andy prompts. 

Pete picks at the beds of his thumbnails and finally says: 'I'm not sleeping with him. You know I'm not fucking sleeping with him, dude, I'm not that stealth. And. Fuck. I don't know.'

'But?'

'But nothing, he's not--' Pete blows out a breath. 'I don't really know him; I know that much, okay?'

'That wasn't the question.'

Pete toys with asking why the fuck Andy even puts up with him. But Andy will just call bullshit on that too. 

'I'll get over it,' he mumbles.

Because he will. He always does get over his unrequited crushes. This one's gonna hurt like a bitch, it's gonna claw him up, it's already clawing him up -- he bites his lip again -- but he'll get over it. 

Andy sighs, and gets up to make tea. 

Outside, the distant sound of traffic -- honking horns, engines humming -- announces the rest of the world's rousing to the day. The kettle whistles on the stove in some kind of counterpoint.

'Andy.' 

Andy pushes a mug of tea towards him. 'Yeah?'

Pete looks back down at his own warbling, marbling reflection in the tea. He swirls it to make the image dissipate -- that's the last thing he wants to see, his own hollow eyes. Upstairs, the futon creaks again.

'Don't … don't tell anyone.'

'If I ever start airing shit that's not about me, feel free to hit me and then tell me to fuck off after,' Andy says, soft and rock-solid. 'Pete, you should go lay down.'

'Not tired.' 

The lie of the century.

'Use my bed,' Andy urges, and Pete can't help glancing for the stairs.

A frisson of exhaustion rolls over him at the thought of an actual mattress and his back tweaks in tandem, reminding him how bad the sitting room couch is.

'Pete.' It's like Andy can read his mind. 'You need to sleep, idiot. Go use my fucking bed.'

Pete lets Andy push him towards the stairs, but he climbs them on his own, at least. He's gripping at his last shreds of pride, or something.

He doesn't look at the futon.

The bed smells of Andy when Pete sprawls on it, which makes sense. There are hints of engine grease or sweat but it's mostly soap, laundry detergent, shampoo. It's warm, and it's soft-but-firm, just like Andy. It'll do, in place of what Pete actually wants.

He's still gnawing at his bottom lip when sleep finally drags him down. 

When he buoys back up again into a fuzzy kind of wakefulness, it's to the vague awareness that his phone has been going off and the even vaguer determination to ignore it. Fuck it. He burrows his head somewhere under Andy's pillows and tries to get back to sleep. 

Someone smacks his ass through the blankets, though, and he squeaks and kicks, and pulls his head back out to look reproachfully over his shoulder.

'Who the fuck let you in?' he mumbles at Saporta, who's sitting on the edge of the bed looking way too awake for whatever godforsaken hour of the morning it is. ''M asleep, asshole.'

'Like you sleep,' says Gabe. 'Get up.'

Pete slumps back to the mattress. 'Mnf. Why are you here?' 

'You were off your game last night, c'mon, get out of bed, bitch.' 

He makes like he's going to slap Pete again but he telegraphs the move enough that Pete can roll out of the way. 

'Go away, asshole. You're not allowed in Andy's bed, he says so on a like, twice-daily basis.'

'He just hasn't opened his eyes to the possibilities yet, I'm working on it,' says Gabe airily. 'Anyway, Hurley says his bed is actually the DMZ and subject to all such applicable international laws and the Geneva Convention, so get up princess. Don't make me carry you out of here like the maiden we both know you aren't.'

Gabe's argument doesn't even make sense and his smile is too big and the sunshine outside is leaking too-bright through the high windows, and Pete just wants to be left alone with his stupidity and his gnawed-puffy lower lip. He doesn't sit up. But he's not stupid enough to think Gabe's gonna go away, either.

'What do you want?' he mumbles into the pillows.

If he gets up, he has to walk past Gerard and Mikey, you see. 

'To appreciate your ass in the glorious light of day. Get _up_ , Wentz.'

'Fuck _off_.' 

It could have more bite to it. Gabe gets a grip on his shoulder and manages to pull him up to sitting, and Pete just. Can't be bothered fighting him. 

He gropes for his phone and ignores the barrage of texts, all from Gabe, on his notifications screen. It's nearly noon, and he realises that there are no other voices, no other noises. The Ways aren't here, which makes sense, actually, because Gerard probably has PT. Pete must have slept through them leaving. 

Still, his stomach does a weird little twisty thing, which is a further illustration of how he's an idiot and Andy was right to ask him how bad this is going to be. He scrubs a hand through his hair, which is frizzing, starting to recover from yesterday afternoon's battle with the straighteners. Ugh. The degree to which he cannot be bothered straightening it again right now is immense. 

Gabe reaches out and pets at him til the hair is at least out of his eyes. 

'C'mon. We're going to get breakfast, or lunch, or whatever. Brunch.'

He doesn't take his hand away. Pete likes it when anyone pets him, but Gabe is, he'll grudgingly admit, particularly good at it. He strokes and skritches Pete's scalp lightly, and Pete starts to feel a little less like a sad trash raccoon, even though he probably looks like one, given that he didn't wash his face last night. He probably got eyeliner all over Andy's pillowcases. 

Again. 

Gabe's still looking at him softly. Pete hates that he loves him.

'I need coffee,' he cedes. 'And water, maybe.'

'Sure,' Gabe agrees. 'But you need food, too. Come _on_.' 

He passes Pete a shirt and a pair of jeans that Pete's pretty sure aren't his, but Pete's not quite sure where any of his clothes are any more, since he's sleeping on the sofa and the shit he discards after a night out tends to disappear and reappear with Andy's laundry. He just sort of … wears whatever he finds on the floor or in the hamper. 

When he's mostly dressed, Gabe scruffs his hair again and says, as if this is the first time he's laid eyes on Pete, 'Morning, sunshine. Brunch-lunch is on me,' and hops off the bed. 

Pete follows him down the stairs, recovering his shoes halfway. They pass Andy on their way out. He's got the garage door open so that he can work on his current job -- a recent-model Mustang Pete doesn't recognise from the track -- in the fresh air. He nods at Gabe. Like actually _at Gabe_. 

And Pete suddenly realises that Andy must have … something. Talked to Gabe. Willingly let Gabe into his house. And now he, Pete Wentz, is getting ganged up on.

Gabe leers at Andy in return, though, so at least the universe isn't completely ass-backwards. 

'We'll be back before sundown, I promise. I won't let him turn into a pumpkin.'

Andy rolls his eyes. 'Be safe.' 

'I'll take _very_ good care of him, don't worry.'

'You break it, you buy it, Saporta.'

Gabe snakes an arm around Pete's waist and kisses his temple. 'I wouldn't worry about that. He's pretty flexible.'

'You hyperextend it, you can spend the time taking it to PT, then.'

'Guys, I'm right here,' says Pete reproachfully. Gabe nuzzles at him. 

'Like I could forget, baby girl,' Gabe croons ostensibly at him but mostly for the benefit of Andy, because they're performance art or something and Gabe likes a tough audience. 'Alright, I gotta go spoil my princess, Hurley, we can flirt later. Ciao.'

'You're obscene,' is Andy's parting shot. 

Gabe wheels Pete towards his car and doesn't look back.

Not-enough-sleep hangover notwithstanding, it's nice to be in Gabe's car. It hums and Gabe sets the radio to … something. Lady Gaga, Pete thinks, because of course. And the sunny afternoon glides by until they end up at a diner near La Cienega and Gabe's unfolding himself to step out of the driver's seat faster than Pete can unbuckle his seatbelt.

'Keep up, Wentz,' Gabe calls. 'I'm fucking hungry.'

The diner, like all diners, smells of range grease and starch, and once they're seated, Pete realizes he's starving too. Which is all well and good because Gabe flips one sticky menu around without even looking at it and gives the waitress a dazzling smile. 

'The pancake special,' he says. 'Please. And -- coffee, for my date here.'

The waitress struts off, smiling. When she eventually returns with their food, Gabe leans on his elbows and says _you're just a doll_ and she rolls her eyes a little but she's still grinning.

Pete just huffs into his coffee and rolls his eyes for real.

The amount of syrup Gabe insists on putting on his pancakes is sincerely obscene -- in keeping with Andy's earlier comment. It's obscene and it's profound, and what's also profound is how unfairly gentle he is when he says, 'C'mon Wentz, spill.'

Pete freezes, halfway to setting his mug down, and his chest goes all painful and tight. Gabe just waits. It would be easier to talk, Pete thinks, if he didn't suddenly feel hot in his face and a little sick all over again. 

Because of exhaustion, maybe. 

Or shame. 

Probably both.

'I'm an idiot,' he manages, stirring his coffee for something to do. 

'Well, we knew that,' Gabe smiles. 'Doesn't usually get you this down, though.'

Pete doesn't even know where to start, is the thing. He'd kind of love to spill, but he doesn't know what there is _to_ spill, any more than he knew what to say to Andy when Andy asked him how bad he had it. He doesn't know, except that he likes a boy. He likes a boy, and he kissed the boy, because he was sad and beautiful and Pete didn't know what else to do. 

And maybe the boy liked it, but.

But?

But infatuation laces itself through Pete's insides, becomes more than just infatuation, and _pulls_ \-- and yeah. He knows that he has some kind of weird middle-school complex; that he's never been good at stamping out what he feels; that he rides the highs and lows of it every fucking time, and everyone with eyeballs can see because he's the fucking definition of _heart on his sleeve_. And now he's all twisted around that heart and those highs for someone who has been through legitimate shared trauma with him -- and somehow the most he can say about it is: 'I like a boy'. 

See again: Pete's an idiot. 

'I don't know, I'm just. Worried. About Mikey.'

Gabe gives him such a long look that Pete thinks he's actually going to call bullshit, but he doesn't. He leans back in his seat, casual as anything, and says, 'He's holding up, I promise. He's racing pretty good these days, and y'know what? He's not the one I had to haul out of another man's bed in only his underwear this morning. It's not Mikey I'm worried about.'

Pete glares. All else aside, Gabe _should_ be worried -- everyone should be worried. Mikey disappears all the time and comes back at the thin hours of not-night-not-morning, and he won't tell anyone where he goes, and he only smiles when he's next to Gerard. 

Pete doesn't understand how this isn't freaking everyone else out. How Gerard isn't beside himself. He must fucking know, he can't be that heavy a sleeper; he shares a goddamn bed with Mikey. 

Or at least he does when Mikey's in the bed, which isn't all that often. 

And because Pete can't leave well enough alone, his great idea to help … sublimate his worries was apparently to kiss Mikey in front of the whole fucking scene because? That's a smart move. So yeah, okay, maybe Gabe's right to worry about Pete but fuck, Pete wishes someone else would worry about Mikey alongside him. 

He slouches in his seat. 

'I just want to talk to him. I … fucked up. Last night. And I want to say sorry.'

Gabe looks at him and his eyes are kind. 'I don't think you fucked up as bad as you think you did.'

Great. He saw it, then, or someone saw it and told him, or … something. That's why he's not pushing -- he already knows what Pete did and he knows Pete feels like shit about it. 

Pete wrinkles his nose. 'Doesn't mean I'm not sorry.'

'So talk to him.' 

Like it's that easy. 'Can't.'

Pete would elaborate, but his throat closes up.

Gabe sighs and pushes the pancakes towards him. 'Okay, well, I told Hurley I'd keep you out of trouble 'til sundown. Can we at least do something fun today? Or do we need to go find some urban decay architecture so we can take brooding selfies?'

'You're an asshole, I'm tons of fun.'

'Yeah but you're also a heavyweight champion of brooding selfies.'

'I'm a champion of every selfie, babe.'

 

'C'monnnnn, lemme take you someplace fun,' Gabe wheedles. 

Pete has to admit, Gabe pulls such a good pouting 'please' face, it's no wonder he's stringing approximately half the scene along at his heels.

'Fine,' Pete spears a chunk of the syrup-sopping pancakes. 'Sweep me off my feet, Saporta.'

Gabe grins big like he just won the lottery. 'I'm thinking a gallery sweep down on Sunset? I'm feeling _cultured_ today.'

Pete snorts. 

Between them, they finish the pancakes and, Gabe was right, Pete did need food. Not that he feels like any less of an ass, but now that he isn't on the verge of hypoglycemic shock, at least he can feel like a well-fed and less headachey ass. Gabe leaves the waitress a generous tip and they step back out into the sun-dusted afternoon.

In West Hollywood, Gabe drags him from art gallery to art gallery, flirting with every receptionist and gallery assistant on the way. 

'Oh, we're visiting,' he tells one assistant. ' _Summering_ , really; the family's traveling through England right now, but, you know. Some of us prefer sunshine.'

The assistant, who's wearing chunky, stylish glasses and the most angular shirt-skirt combo Pete has ever seen, looks between the two of them with some degree of derisive incredulity. 

'You're English?'

Gabe leans on the reception counter, grinning. 'Couldn't you tell?' he teases, not even bothering to affect an accent. 'I'm with MI6, actually.'

Pete can't catch his own laugh and the petite assistant actually cracks a grin.

'We're American,' he supplies, deciding to play along. 'Our mothers are English.'

'We're cousins,' Gabe expounds. 'Our moms' side. But I got all the good looks from my dad. Anyway, we're off across the pond in a week, but it's been a hot minute since we visited LA, so we thought -- why not?'

The assistant arches one very well manicured eyebrow, but her mouth's still upturned at the corners. If she thinks they're full of shit -- and she should; Pete's pretty sure that between them two people have never looked _less_ like East Coast Royalty -- she's at least enjoying the game. 

Gabe tips his head at her. 'So, tell me -- I'm sorry. Moira, was it? We were hoping you might point us in the direction of something fun to do.' 

'Well, help me out,' Moira answers. 'What do you like?'

Gabe's voice actually drops in register when he says, coyly, 'Surprise me.'

'Ignore him,' Pete cuts in. It's hard to sound all that firm, though, while he's fighting not to smirk. 

Lucky for them, Moira doesn't seem to mind. She just chuckles and tells them to enjoy the gallery, which they do -- and she actually does send them off with a short list of recommended tourist sites. 

'Enjoy LA,' she says, sounding just this side of wry.

Gabe tucks his arm through Pete's. 'I'm sure we will.'

Moira huffs a laugh and watches them lead each other back out into the sunshine.

All told, it's an easy afternoon, and Pete is sincerely surprised when the shadows grow longer and the eastward horizon starts to turn a dusty violet. He hasn't felt this lightweight in what feels like eons. Following Gabe back to his car, Pete's heart swells a tiny bit, and, lodged as it is in his chest, grows redder. 

Gabe pulls the driver's door open. His eyes catch Pete's over the hood of the car and he grins big and bright and happy.

Pete's so lucky. Sometimes he's not sure what he did to deserve it.

By the time they make it back to Andy's, dusk has the sky carpeted in darkening blues. Gabe pulls up in front of the garage and tips his head against Pete's when he stops the car. 

'You shouldn't be so hard on yourself.'

He's gone all gentle again. It makes Pete itchy under his skin. He fights his seatbelt off.

'Someone's gotta be,' he mumbles.

Gabe answers with an inelegant snort. 'Stupid.' He presses a dry kiss to Pete's cheek.

The garage -- and the whole loft, really -- looms in oblique black shapes against the sky. Pete's stomach twists at the thought of going inside. 

'I just don't know what to do,' he says, the words getting away before he can stop himself. 

Gabe shakes his head a little. 'Take care of yourself. Everything else'll sort itself out eventually.'

The hollow feeling in his stomach tells Pete this can't possibly be true. When Gabe gives his shoulder a squeeze, all he wants is to ask him to throw the car back in drive so they can go to Gabe's bungalow and … whatever.

Sleep for eternity.

Or wake up in a life where he actually learns from his mistakes. Something like that. But then he thinks of Andy, and he feels guilty all over again, just for a different reason.

'I'll see you soon?' he manages with a sigh.

Gabe gives him a soft smile. 'Couldn't keep me away if you tried.'

Pete loves him so much.

And when he climbs out of the car and makes his way inside to find Andy already at the bar, waiting for him with Gerard and a pre-fixed plate of food, Pete loves him too.

'Fun afternoon?' Andy asks, passing Pete the plate without preamble. 

'Yeah.' Pete slides onto a stool. 'Thanks. And hey, welcome back,' he says to Gerard.

Gerard smiles, but looks attenuated and tired. 'You too.'

Mikey, of course, is conspicuously absent. 

Pete doesn't ask. And Andy and Gerard don't say anything. Instead Pete says to Gerard _me and Gabe found some neat galleries down on Sunset, today; we should check them out sometime_ , because in the time they've spent living together, Pete's figured out that if there's anything Gerard likes as much as cars, it's art. It's really sweet, actually.

Gerard's mouth curls up at the corner again, soft and sad and affectionate all at once. 

'Yeah, we should.'

It's quiet after that, except for the intermittent lull of idle conversation. Pete can feel the glow of a happy afternoon dimming. It'll gutter out, soon, he's sure. And maybe he doesn't feel as bad as he did when he woke up, but when Gerard slips off his stool and says _I'm gonna lay down_ and his voice sounds papery, something cracks in Pete's chest.

Andy just watches Gerard go, looking grim. 

'Where's Mikey?' Pete hushes, once he hears the futon creak and then go silent with Gerard settled on it.

Andy shakes his head. 'He went for a walk.'

Bullshit, Pete thinks, but for once in his life he catches himself. Besides, judging by the look on Andy's face, Andy knows it's bullshit too. So Pete just helps him clean what there is to clean in the kitchen, and then goes to settle on the couch with his laptop. Andy scruffs his hair, gently, on his way up to bed.

'I'll see you tomorrow,' he says, and there's something in his voice that makes Pete want to put the laptop down, twist around, and hug him. 

Instead, he just tugs out his earbuds so he can tip his head back just enough to see Andy's face, lit up by the glow of the screen. 'Okay.'

The corners of Andy's eyes crinkle, and he goes. Pete listens to the stairs creak under his weight. When everything falls silent again, he gets his earbuds resituated, sets the movie to play again. It's hard to focus. His thoughts flit around, little useless mothwings battering up against apologies he hasn't said, and a fear and an affection that he's not sure he has the right to feel in the first place.


	8. Chapter 8

Mikey pulls up at tonight's pickup spot, and realises with some distaste that it's a park. And okay, sure,it's too late for actual kids to be playing here, unless their parents are neglectful as shit, but it's still a park. 

There's a swingset and a slide and a fucking seesaw.

It feels worse to wait here to do a handover than it does at the usual parking lots and outside derelict, boarded-up storefronts. 

He fidgets. The 'check engine' light glows on the dash. He should probably at least pop the hood on the car tomorrow. Andy won't mind if he pulls it into the garage and pokes at it a bit. It's not worth actually asking someone else to look at it for him -- he can top up his own oil or whatever it wants. 

While he toys with the idea of turning on the radio, another car pulls in next to him. 

He winds the window down and sits patiently, not looking into the other car beyond sideways glances. Normally this bit's over in ten seconds flat, if the other guy isn't new enough or hopped up enough to want to show off how macho he thinks he is. Mikey's the champion of waiting to be handed illicit packages while not making eye contact with the dude on the other end. 

But this time, the other car's passenger door swings open, and someone gets out, only to lean down into the open window of Mikey's piece-of-shit. He looks up, startled.

'Get out,' says Leto, and he smirks, sharklike in the half-dark. 'We need to talk, sweetheart.'

Mikey's blood goes to icewater in his veins, but he steps out of his car when Leto moves back enough to let him get the door open. 

'Congratulations on your third place,' Leto grins, leaning back on the hood of his car. Inside, his driver has the hood up on his sweatshirt and if he's not armed, then Mikey has clearly phased into an entirely separate universe. 'Beginner's luck is doing well for you.'

Mikey shrugs, warily, and waits for the other shoe to drop. 

'Oh, c'mon Way, I'm just making friendly conversation. You can talk to me.'

'Thanks,' Mikey forces out, but he's not sure what Leto _wants_. 'Uh. Is there gonna be a drop tonight, or--'

'We'll get to that.' Leto waves his hand languorously, like shuffling around pounds of illegal chemistry experiments is of no consequence. 'I have gossip to catch up on -- like, I hear you've got some new friends helping you out with your form on the track.' 

He winks.

It's gross flirtation, and a contextless statement, and it leaves Mikey feeling like Leto's just saying shit to deliberately knock him off his balance. He curls his fingers hard against his palms to keep from hugging himself. 

'What are you talking about--'

'New to you, I should say. They're the old guard round here. Unless someone lied to me about Patrick Stump's sudden reappearance -- and on the night of your first race, no less.'

At Mikey's teeth-gritted silence, Leto laughs. 

'Yeah. I thought so. And to top it off, you've still got Wentz in your corner. Our former heavyweight champion -- you're a lucky boy.'

The saccharine sneer in his voice when he says _Wentz_ makes Mikey's gorge rise. He wants to spit in Leto's face, shove him, ask what the flying fuck he gives about Patrick, or Pete, or any of them. He wants to hit him just for sounding so fucking proud when he calls Pete _former_ champion. 

Instead he just chokes on his rage, speechless.

'Anyway.' Leto carries on without missing a beat. 'With all that talent coaching you, you should have no trouble doing an extra little job for me.'

'What kind of job?' Mikey snaps, before he can think to keep his tone even. His anger kicks in his chest and, with nowhere to go, twists into the sharp shear of anxiety and -- no. 

No more. He's so exhausted he can barely think most days. He can't _do_ more. 

'Nothing difficult. Nothing you're not already doing.'

Dealing. Mikey stares, mouth open, his brain making the leap for him. It's fucking dealing. It's not that big a step from handing over a package to taking money for it, to opening it up and weighing it out and all the rest.

'I won't--' he starts, but there's a panicky pitch in his voice, and he doesn't know how to rein himself back in.

Leto laughs. 'Settle, petal. I just want you to lose a race, that's all. Strategically.' 

'What?'

'You're a hot mess out on that track, kiddo, everyone can see it. You're holding it together, but one of these days you're going to lose it for real.' He shrugs, and reaches out to chuck Mikey under the chin, curve his palm to caress Mikey's cheel. Mikey steps back and bumps into the side of his car. 'I just want you to do it when I tell you to, that's all. Doesn't have to be a big accident, just. Get in someone's way for me.'

'You want me to crash into someone. Deliberately.'

'Basically. I mean, it doesn't have to be spectacular. It's better if it isn't, really, because everyone's going to believe you could almost accidentally hit someone else. If you nudge someone off course, it's not going to look like you did it on purpose.'

'Get fucked,' Mikey says coldly. 'I'm not doing that.'

Leto's smile grows like rime-ice on a windscreen, curved and vicious and sharp. 'Oh, sweetheart. Did you think you got a choice?'

Mikey glares at him, but he's trapped, he knows he's trapped.

'I mean, you can keep saying no, that's fine. I'll have fun getting your boyfriend riled up enough to actually do something stupid. Or did you think no one saw you whispering sweet nothings to each other?' Mikey's stomach drops and Leto's eyes flash. 'You were in a fucking car lot, kiddo; it's hard to miss the PDA.'

'He's not my boyfriend,' Mikey rallies, but it's so hollow, he can feel the echo in his ribcage as he says it, the same way he felt it when Pete slid out from between him and the Trans Am in the parking lot, where Leto, or one of his goons, was apparently watching. 'I barely know him.'

'I'm not interested in the intimate details of your tortured love life,' Leto quips, and he's back in Mikey's space again. 'You can stand up for -- what, exactly? What you believe in? That's cute. Don't throw the race for me, if that makes you feel any better. You know, Wentz says racing's not for him anymore, but I'm sure there's _something_ that could get him behind the wheel again. You should have seen him back in the day; great driver, but he's reckless when you get him upset.'

He's so fucking disgusting. Too many furious, useless words screw themselves tight to the back of Mikey's sternum. He thinks he might be sick.

Leto pats his cheek again. 'But how would you know all that -- you barely know him, right?'

He leers and his smile looks too bright in a bloodless mouth, and Mikey feels cold and awful. Awful, because he'd wished Pete had stayed where he was, between Mikey and the car, all warm and soft, wanting … whatever it is he wanted from Mikey -- and awful because he only ever wanted to keep Pete away from Leto. 

'Fine,' he rasps.

'Attaboy.' Leto turns and reaches into his car, to take a package from his driver. 'Now take this where it needs to go.'

Mikey feels heavy paper crunch against his hand when he takes the package with numb fingers. 

Leto reaches behind Mikey to pull the car door open as far as it'll go. It bumps up against his back. 

'You're a good kid, Way,' Leto smirks.

Mikey just waits for him to step back enough that he can get into his own fucking car. 

The dropoff goes fine. 

Totally fine. Mikey watches himself go through the motions from somewhere far away, outside his own head, and drives back to Andy's loft and the only real difficulty he has is when he has to force himself to turn onto Andy's road and not keep going straight until he hits either an open highway out of here, or open fucking water. 

He makes the turn instead of putting his foot down, parks, and knows he's kind of a coward. 

He's getting good at slipping back into Andy's loft almost entirely silently but it's hard to not-wake someone who never went to sleep in the first place, and the first thing Mikey sees when he slips through the door is the pool of blue light around the couch, Pete's silhouette against his laptop screen.

He twists enough to watch Mikey close the door out of the corner of his eye, but still looks like he's trying to pretend he's not doing it. 

Probably because he's trying to afford Mikey some dignity. Which is generous.

Mikey slides on past the couch and pretends he didn't see Pete pretend not to see him. He keeps to the shadows and makes it to the stairs, where he knows that the third from bottom one creaks even if you keep to the edges, so he takes the risk of stepping over it. The rest of the way, he ascends as silent as a ghost.

By the futon, he toes off his shoes, and slides his jeans off onto the floor noiselessly and slips under the covers and Gerard doesn't even move. Mission accomplished, right?

He wants to curl into Gerard's warmth and be hugged, but that would necessitate waking his brother up, which would make it apparent that he got home this late, and fuck, the last thing he wants is another oblique talk about … whatever it is Gerard worries he's doing. 

The faintest glow of the laptop screen filters upstairs, collected like a hoarfrost just on the lip of the loft landing.

Pete would probably have hugged him, if Mikey had gone to the couch, sat down with him. Maybe Pete would have kissed him again. A blood-deep wanting pulls in Mikey's veins and makes the same needle of anxiety sour in his heart. Because Pete's mouth was so fucking soft, and so careful, and Mikey just.

Needs to get fucking _laid_ , Jesus fucking Christ. 

He needs to get laid and he needs to not be within three feet of Pete on a race night ever again. Maybe if he's enough of a dick, visibly, it'll break that pretty way Pete smiles at him. Maybe if he were the kind of person who _wanted_ to wreck someone on the track, Pete would just stop giving a fuck altogether.

He tugs at the covers for no good reason. He's clenching his jaw. He hadn't noticed before, but now he can't make himself stop. 

What would it even feel like, to throw the wheel sideways and know you're going to hit something? Someone. To expect the moment of impact, to engineer it, instead of just being scared of it sneaking up on you?

Maybe it'd feel the same way as leaning into Pete. Opening his mouth and taking something because he wanted it. 

He should have cashed the checks Pete's been writing with his body language since day one. He should have gotten him up against some fucking wall and fucked him then, before they knew anything about each other. 

Because now there's no un-knowing how Pete is when it's not about some one-off fling in the dark. Now he knows that Pete can be soft. Sweet when he kisses, and warm, and now Mikey knows that that's how he is, through and through, under all the eyeliner and glitter and bravado -- just like he was sweet and warm, cradling Mikey against his body to let him sleep, that one time. Concerned and gentle, staying up with Mikey the whole night in the ER in miserable plastic chairs, waiting with him to hear if Gerard was gonna make it through. Like fucking sunshine, when he's happy -- a buoy, infectious and unselfishly uplifting. 

Ugh. Mikey bites his lip hard and rolls his eyes at _himself_. Could he get more fucking middle school? 

Probably not. 

And now that he's stuck in some kind of arrested-development joke of his own making, now that knows these things about Pete, he can't fuck him. Not without making a mess. 

Fucking awesome.

He must move too much, or shiver or something, because Gerard's breathing changes timbre and tempo. Mikey braces himself for Gerard to say something, or to touch his shoulder, but it doesn't happen. Still, Mikey lays awake, the flare of muscle down his back all knotted up with tension until a pinkish dawn light oozes into the loft's high window.

He stares at the ceiling and listens to Hurley rustle around, careful and quiet, to ninja his way downstairs.

When the kettle actually whistles in the kitchen, Gerard stirs.

Mikey's eyes feel gritty and swollen and he wishes he could cry. Instead, it just feels like there's an oblique rock stuck in his throat. 

Gerard sits up against the wall and lays a hand on Mikey's hair. Mikey could probably close his eyes and pretend he's trying to sleep. He knows Gerard wouldn't question it. Gerard would just stroke his hair for a little while and then leave him to his shitty veil of a lie and not press him for anything he didn't want to say.

But then it'd just be one more thing for Mikey to feel guilty about. 

So he looks up at his brother. Gerard's all bleary-eyed, his hair a disastrous cherry bedhead, like an anime character, fuzzy until Mikey gives in and gropes for his glasses on the floor next to the futon. 

'Do you wanna talk about it?' Gerard asks, so quietly Mikey wouldn't even be sure he'd heard it if Gerard's mouth hadn't moved. 

Mikey just presses his cheek into the pillow that's half under him, pink-stained. What can he even say?

_Pete kissed me and I don't know why?_

_I think I'm going to get someone who doesn't deserve it killed and I don't even know who yet?_

_I'm sorry in advance for the night when I go out and don't come back?_

It all sounds selfish and stupid, and even if Gerard could forgive him, no one else would.

He curls close to his brother. 'I want you to be okay.'

Gerard's fingers curve over the base of his skull and the air is heavy with everything Mikey can't tell him. In the end, Gerard just answers with:

'I love you, Mikes. Always.' 

***

'I don't think he should drive this week.'

Joe, frankly, would love it if just once Patrick could be not so aggressively and exactly like himself. Just once, to give them all a break. Andy just sighs.

'Patrick, you've been saying this since minute one,' Joe points out.

Patrick makes a sour face. They're sitting, both of them, at Andy's bar while Andy scrubs his hands with industrial-strength grease remover and turns to face them, leaning back against the sink counter. Patrick's grumping notwithstanding, Joe's always happy to visit Andy's place -- and happier still that Patrick's apparently taken to wanting to come along from time to time, even if his visits are always strategically organized around the Ways and Pete all being out of the loft. 

Baby steps, Joe supposes. 

'I'm serious,' Patrick snaps. 'He almost fell asleep at the wheel the other day. He's exhausted.'

Andy sighs again, like he's the exhausted one, and Joe can really empathize.

'I don't know, Patrick,' Andy says. 'He's out late a lot. It might've just been a long night.'

'What do you mean he's out late a lot?'

'I mean he goes out and gets back late.'

Patrick's jaw goes tight.

'Patrick, it's called a booty call,' Joe snarks, but he's not entirely sure he buys it, even as he says it. 

There's something about the way Andy said 'out late' -- something about the unsmiling look on Andy's face, really -- that makes Joe think it's something else. Or, if it is a booty call, it's not a great one.

'No,' Patrick growls at him, clearly picking up on the same cues. 'A booty call is just. Wherever the hell you were last night--'

'--thank you so much for sharing, Patrick--'

'--and _Mikey_ always looks like shit. What the fuck kind of booty call is that?'

Andy scrubs a hand over his eyes and goes to the fridge. 'I'm not saying it is or it isn't. He doesn't talk about it much.'

'And no one asked?'

'Patrick.' Joe can see how he's bristling, and it's not even that he's unsympathetic. It's just that occasionally, maybe just _sometimes_ , the best way to handle a situation isn't to arrive, guns blazing. Like, just a thought. 'Take a deep breath.'

He may as well not have said anything for all that Patrick listens. 'How long has this been going on?'

Andy collects a plate of … something … from the fridge. It looks like apple fritters, Joe thinks, when he turns back around and flicks the stove on. He slices two pats of whatever constitutes the vegan version of butter and tosses them into a frying pan. 

'A while,' he tells Patrick. 

The buttery-substitute sizzles and he drops two of the fritters into the pan.

 _A while_ doesn't sound great either. Joe waits for Andy to say more, but Patrick 'I Wouldn't Know Chill If It Hit Me In the Face' Stump steamrolls right into the very brief lull.

'What's 'a while'? Because he always looks fucking tired, like, since I met him, and if this is why--'

'Patrick,' Andy cuts in. 'It's not like no one else is worried.'

'And yet, here we are, and no one's doing anything.'

Joe rolls his eyes. 'Okay, Captain Overprotective, _you_ just found out literally two minutes ago.'

'So I can't think it's weird?'

'You're jumping to conclusions about no one doing anything.'

'Did you not hear me say he almost fell asleep at the wheel?'

'Guys.' Andy pulls three plates from the cupboard. His voice is still even, but there's a firmness to it that Joe recognizes as code for _god give me strength_. 'Gerard's tried to talk to him about it.'

'You're sure?'

'They're sleeping on a futon that's two fucking feet away from my bed. It's not hard to hear them talk.'

'You still haven't said what "it" is,' Patrick grumbles.

'I don't _know_ what it is. I'm with you: it doesn't look great. But what do you suggest we do? Bar him from ever leaving the house?'

'Maybe.'

'I'm sure that'll go well,' Joe drawls. Patrick gives him a black look, but, please. Minor temper tantrums are the name of the game. Joe wouldn't have gotten this far into their friendship if he didn't know how to handle them. But he does try for something gentler when he adds: 'You can't just force people to do what you want them to do. Even if it's for their own good.'

He'll cede that maybe this isn't the exact moment to have said that, but it does need to be said. A hush falls over the kitchen, Patrick's irritation slipping for one second, and revealing something much more fragile and wounded underneath. 

'It's not about forcing him,' he says; his voice sounds like it's half-stuck in the back of his throat. 

Joe knows. He really does. It's not fun, waiting to see if someone's gonna crash and burn. It's not fun, not knowing if the people you love aren't going to come home in one piece. But fighting with them doesn't make them any safer. 

'You're welcome to try to talk to him,' Andy says, dishing out the fritters. They smell like cinnamon and soft crust, and Joe isn't overwhelmingly hungry given the circumstances, but he is grateful. 'But the guy's a professional when it comes to not saying shit, so. It might not turn out the way you want.'

'He's gonna hurt himself, Andy.' 

'Yeah,' Joe agrees.

It really is true; getting on the track when you're half-asleep is basically a deathwish and … Joe doesn't know Mikey nearly as well as he knows Gerard, at this point, but sometimes he worries that the dude might _actually_ be waiting for someone to just wreck him. If that's what it was, his stubborn, iron insistence on continuing to do something he hates would make a little bit more sense.

Andy's mouth just gets thin. 'At this point, everyone and their mother has told him he shouldn't be driving. And Gerard tries to get him to stay in at night. And … ' 

'And if he won't listen to Gerard, he's not going to listen to anyone,' Joe supplies. He and Patrick haven't been back that long, but if there's one thing he's twigged about this whole situation, it's that the Way brothers are attached at the brainstem or something.

'Basically.'

Patrick shifts around on his stool, restless. 'What does Pete say?'

His voice goes so soft and so careful that it's devastating -- and Joe has nothing left to do but knock his knuckles gently against Patrick's.

'Pete doesn't say anything,' Andy tells them. 'But it's not like it's hard to tell that he's worried too.' 

No, any person in the world could see that Pete feels nine million kinds of ways about Mikey. Joe tugs on a bit of his own hair, feeling vaguely morose. 

'So this is just a great situation,' he remarks.

'Essentially.'

Patrick opens his mouth, but out in the sitting room, the front groans on its steel hinges. And then Pete appears at the kitchen threshold. And everything's chilly for an absolutely awesome three seconds. 

'Hey,' Pete says, when he appears to remember that he has a voice and is also manifested in a physical body and that they're all looking at him. 'I … didn't realize you guys were coming over.'

Joe shrugs. 'Kind of a spur of the moment thing.'

Pete smiles weakly. 

'Here,' Andy says, setting out another plate.

He's got two more fritters in the frying pan and Pete cautiously takes up the stool on Joe's other side. He cuts a totally uncomfortable glance at Patrick. Joe could just sigh for the life he used to have, where things were, like, mostly normal before this bizarro teen drama consumed it.

'Were you out with Mikey?' Pete asks.

Patrick's ears go all red. 'No. Just, uh. Visiting?'

It. Is. So. Awkward.

But to Patrick's credit, he does look Pete in the eye. To both their credit, a bit of tension unwinds in their postures.

'Oh,' Pete says. 'Sweet.'

Patrick's mouth wrinkles in a soft, grateful smile. And it gets a little less weird.

Joe just glances at Andy, who spears the second pair of fritters out of the pan and acts like he isn't fucking witnessing the drawing up of a mutual disarmament agreement. 

'Here.' He passes a plate to Pete and then goes back to the fridge for something. 

Pete's smile stretches, big and happy, when Andy sets a bowl of whipped cream -- or whatever; whipped almond cream -- in front of him.

'What the fuck?' Joe interjects, affronted. 'You save all the good shit for Wentz?'

'He loves me more than you,' Pete preens. 

Andy rolls his eyes. 'It's for everyone.'

Obviously.

Andy is nothing if not aggressively even-handed, but it's fun to bicker. Joe pesters Pete for the whipped cream and Pete pretends like he isn't going to share and Patrick just watches, quietly, and barely picks at his food. At least he has enough self-awareness to let the Mikey issue lie for two seconds, even though Joe can tell it's bothering him.

So of course, as soon as the Ways show up, Patrick slips off his stool and looks at Mikey.

'Take a walk with me?'

Tact, manifest. 

Pete absolutely freezes. Gerard glances between Patrick and Mikey like he's waiting for someone to catch him up on what's wrong. Joe could roll his eyes until the absolute end of time.

'Uh … okay?' Mikey says. He also looks like he's waiting for someone to clue him in.

Joe wonders if it's possible to telepathically get Andy to head this one off, but the answer is apparently 'no'. Or Andy's just a master of reverse psychology, which might also be true.

Either way, he doesn't stop Patrick from heading out into the living room.

Mikey follows with one last _what the hell?_ glance over his shoulder that no one deigns to answer. Because Pete and Gerard can't, and Andy believes in letting people learn from their mistakes or whatever, and Joe would, selfishly, just prefer not to be Patrick's professional handler for one or several moments.

So, good luck Mikey.

Gerard takes up a stool at the bar. 'What did you make?' he asks softly.

'Snacks,' Andy says, and offers him a plate. 

Gerard looks the way he usually looks, friendly, but like he's in real pain underneath. But he takes the food with a cheerful _thank you_.

Familiar sympathy pangs in Joe's heart. It must be miserable, hurting all the time. It must be worse, not knowing where your brother goes, and being too wrung out by a fucking _gunshot wound_ recovery to figure it out, to help him. Really, Joe can't blame Patrick for wanting to do something.

The shitty part is that he doesn't know what that 'something' is.

***

Outside, the sky bleeds orange. 

'Patrick,' Mikey says, following him out the door. 'What's … wrong?'

Patrick grits his teeth and sets off, because. Because? Because he doesn't know what else to do, and a rage of the sort he's never wanted to feel again is suddenly chewing, acrid and corrosive, through his gut. 

'Nothing,' he manages, when Mikey catches up. 'I just wanted to talk.'

'Out here?'

A few cars hiss past, tires churning their susurrus over the pavement. There's a little bodega up ahead, its paneled sign glaring cold white into the fall of the evening, and Patrick doesn't know what to do with his hands, so he rubs at his own arm and keeps walking.

'Yeah, I. Just.' Better something than nothing. 'I think you should sit this week's race out.'

'What? Why?'

Mikey stops walking, which means Patrick has to stop walking, too, and turn to look at him. Pain stings in Patrick's wrists. But Mikey just keeps looking at him, thoroughly guileless, like he's sincerely waiting to hear Patrick's answer. There's no rage; nothing combative. He just looks …

Tired.

Patrick tugs at the brim of his hat. 'You're wrung out. You should rest.'

'I mean -- thanks for worrying, but I'm okay.'

There's nothing _wrong_ with him, not to look at him. He's skinny, maybe, but all in one piece. No bruises, nothing broken -- just exhaustion. And how brittle and delicate he is because of it.

Patrick turns and starts walking again, his chest clotted tight.

Mikey's feet patter over the sidewalk to catch up. 'Where are you going?'

'I'm just walking.'

'Okay?'

They pass the bodega and its brief flare of mercury-glow. More cars rumble past, burbling exhaust in their wake. Patrick swallows the urge to sneeze.

They make it two full blocks before Mikey scoffs like he's annoyed. 

'You know what?' he says, turning on his heel. 'I'm going back. See you later.'

'Mikey.'

' _What_?'

Mikey's voice claps like a thin but deliberate shot. Even though he doesn't keep walking, he doesn't turn to look at Patrick either.

Patrick makes himself exhale very slowly. It does nothing to relieve the knot, tight in the back of his neck. 

'Why are you doing this?' he asks, taking the few steps required to get back into Mikey's line of sight.

'What? Following you around for no good reason?'

' _Racing_ , Mikey.'

'What is your fucking problem?' Mikey's gone all rigid, his hands tight at his sides. 'I want to, okay, how many times--'

'Just like you _want_ to sneak off in the middle of the night?'

'...What?'

Patrick crosses his arms. 'You're tired all the time, Mikey. You almost fell asleep the last time we were out.' He sighs, trying to steady himself. 'Don't lie. But don't do this -- don't drive, don't … just. Go wherever, for whoever. Not if it's going to get you hurt.'

Mikey stands as stiff as a board. 'I'm fine.'

'You're not,' Patrick snaps. 'Anyone paying attention knows you're not--'

'--glad everyone's paying attention, then.'

Patrick wants to shake him. Shake him in lieu of stalking off to find … whatever it is … that he's lying about. Whatever, or whoever, leaves him like this; a wispy amalgam of a person, scared and barely there. Patrick wants to … he doesn't even know what he'd do, if he found that person, but it doesn't matter, because what matters is Mikey, here in front of him, a pissed-off ghost.

'I don't care what you do,' he grinds out. 'But you don't have to do it if it's hurting you.'

'Thanks for weighing in.'

The air has taken on the diffuse, bluish glow that comes with evening, strange and preternatural. The irises of Mikey's eyes -- typically the kind of almost-hazel that's comparable to nothing; the sort of color you couldn't find or match to anything else -- have gone dark in the gloaming. He doesn't move, he doesn't say anything else, he just stands there, his jaw tight and his face drawn sharp with exhaustion, barely breathing.

Patrick's anger curdles in his stomach. 'People care about you, Mikey,' he manages, because sirenlights burst in the back of his mind. 'Everyone, all of us -- we want to help you. Just. You have to let us.'

Silence stretches out for a hideous second in which Mikey only stares at him.

Then Mikey lurches into motion, his arm clipping Patrick's as he stalks past, back in the direction of the loft. 

'I'm fine. So you don't have to worry. And you can tell Andy to stop talking behind my back.'

Patrick listens to him go and doesn't follow.

A reel clips somewhere; the same sirenlights. A scene in his life on infinite repeat.

***

He should have told Patrick, is the thing.

Or that's how it feels anyway, standing out here in the warm night, with the blacktop still hot from a day spent baking in the sun. The air bubbles with common fare noise for a race night; revving engines, people shouting, a thrumming bass beat turned down a little bit low because the actual race hasn't started yet. Mikey feels stupid for thinking nights like this could be a sanctuary.

After all, didn't Leto _find_ him on a night like this, the first time?

He hovers a few feet away from the crowd, trying not to attract attention. It's easy, really. Andy, Ray, and everyone else are all gathered by Andy's truck, like they have some mutual agreement to give him space. And he wants space. He thinks? Or he _should_ want space, maybe. Maybe? Right? Like it's not normal to want company before you work in an assist to what might end up being murder, he's pretty sure. That's why all assassins are loners.

Except he's not an assassin. He's not anyone. And he's pretty sure he's in too deep, and he should have told Patrick.

He scuffs one foot against the asphalt. People throng around him, and around the Trans Am and all the other cars, leaning over engine bays and hoods and roofs. Everyone's vibrating the way people do when they're excited. 

'Mikeyway.'

He startles. Gabe appears from the crowd and scruffs his hair as a way of saying hello. 

Mikey ducks, but smiles. Even if it's weak. 'Hi.'

Gabe's attention skitters away for a second. He shouts to someone across the lot -- _feel free to kiss my ass!_ \-- and flips the bird, happy. He has a line of very purple lovebites patterned down his throat. 

'Lucky night?' Mikey asks, when Gabe catches him looking.

'All my nights are lucky nights,' Gabe preens. 'Unless I say otherwise. But I came to wish you good luck.'

Mikey wonders if he looks as shitty as he feels, and if Gabe's just humoring him out of pity or something. 

'You're not driving tonight?'

'Nah.' Gabe smirks. 'I'll be waiting at the finish for the winner. Or anyone who needs a consolation prize.'

Mikey wishes he could laugh; he likes Gabe, he really does. He doesn't want to seem … weird, or whatever. But he feels grey inside and like all his bones are hollow. His mouth twitches, and that's about it. Gabe looks at him for what feels like a long time, but then he claps Mikey's shoulder, cheerfully. 

'Chin up, kiddo,' he grins. 'I'll be waiting for you too.'

He looks fond as he says it and all Mikey can do is nod again and try not to look guilty. He hates himself a little for feeling relief when Gabe gives his shoulder one more squeeze and saunters off, in search of new company. But he doesn't have much time to dwell. An engine revs. A few people cluster closer to the track.

It's time to pull up to the grid.

He feels sick, guiding the car up to the starting line. He abandoned the burner at Andy's for once, stuffed in a bucket full of rags under the bathroom sink, where he was pretty sure no one would accidentally happen upon it. He doesn't need it tonight anyway; he already knows what Leto wants him to do.

Two cars down, Siska pulls up in his GTR.

Memory makes it feel like it would have been so easy to tell Patrick. To just confess to everything. Maybe Patrick would have known what to do. It's stupid, Mikey knows; Patrick wouldn't know what to do more than anyone else, it's just … nice to think. Even though Patrick rolls his eyes every time Mikey corners too slow, the idea of having spilled his guts is still nice.

So nice, in fact, that Pete's appearance on the grid jerks Mikey back to reality like a gutpunch. To his left, Lazzara guns his engine, and Mikey feels dizzy.

The shimmer on Pete's hotpants catch the glare of the headlights and what's left of the setting sunlight. He's grandstanding for all he's worth, and it's always ridiculous to watch, but Mikey thinks he's pretty anyway. Pretty and bright as burnished gold, and sharp in that way Mikey knows is an act, now. 

The Trans Am rumbles like a beast waking up. Mikey's hands feel numb.

Maybe he doesn't have to tell anyone. Maybe he doesn't have to do what Leto wants either. It wouldn't be so hard to twitch the car the other wrong way and hit a wall or a bollard or a shoulder or something -- something not on wheels, not occupied by another human. It would still throw the race and maybe no one else would get hurt. 

But then Pete's telltale _Alright bitches!_ cuts over the sounds of the engines, and he thrusts something cerise high in the air. There are no more 'maybes' after that.

The Trans Am grumbles when Mikey floors the accelerator, and rattles while it picks up speed. He'll never get used to this, even if he can do it now; the shifter, the pedals, the way the car groans. The world flies by in streaks of color and light and this has never been fun and never will be fun, not now, and not ever. He holds fast to the steering wheel.

It's a right-handed circuit so he banks closer to the outer rim -- it always makes him feel safer, for some reason, to know no one's on his right. Lazzara, already back in the game like his spin-out didn't even happen, has the lead. But Siska was the one Leto's goons mentioned at the last pickup. Keep your eyes on Siska.

Don't let him cross the finish line. That's all.

Lazzara's engine roars, and the twin pins of Shannon's taillights follow in hot pursuit. They're both going so much faster than Mikey ever would, but Siska's trying to catch up to them, so Mikey has no choice but to chase. Rounding the final bend, Siska tries to take the inside line. Mikey feels cold inside, and also doesn't feel anything at all -- and that works, somehow. The not-feeling. It lets him chase the space to pull up to Siska's GTR, wheel to wheel-- 

\--and there's a horrible, sheet-steel sound and the track clips and clips, all out of order, and the Trans Am _bucks_ , dragged by its own momentum, and Mikey can't do anything except feel the steering wheel skid in his palms.

***

Pete hears tires burn out before he actually sees anything, which, in retrospect, will feel impossible because he's pretty sure he heard somewhere once about light traveling faster than sound, or something. 

But he hears it, and his chest tightens up before he even sees what's happening. 

What's happening being: Lazzara swinging around the corner, edging Shannon out for the lead. He really shouldn't be driving again this soon, the fucking idiot, but there's nothing to be done about that, and he's looking well and good anyway, considering the fact that Shannon can't catch him. But then Siska's turning the bend with _Mikey_ on his outside and it … shouldn't be happening. The Trans Am is too heavy to take a turn at that speed with another car on the inside line, and Siska's going way too fast for Mikey to hope to outpace him at any rate, and Pete really _does_ hear it before the scene catches up with him.

Steel catching steel shrieks louder than the rubber burnout and it doesn't sound like anything else in the world, even though it hits like a roll of thunder. Every time, it turns out. Every single fucking time. Pete will never not know that noise.

He'd run, except there's nothing to run to. Siska's GTR rides the high inside inside wall, concrete-to-chrome, and actual fucking sparks fly before the spinout. The Trans Am, grating down the GTR's outside, overcorrects, fishtails, grinds along the wall and the now-stationary GTR -- and Pete's heart is up his throat and choking him by the time the last car rounds the corner, clips Mikey's tail, and skids into third on a swerve.

He's aware of other people suddenly running for the track, of the fact that everything has _stopped_ even though two drivers didn't make it to the finish. He's aware because he's seen this happen before, it's not like it's new, but now a high, white, keening sound has consumed all of his higher order brain function.

He shouldn't run like some kind of love-struck idiot for the wreck. There's nothing he can do, and he shouldn't run and be so fucking obvious, but he does, and he almost punches Andy for getting a hard grip on his arm to hold him back. 

Vicky gets to the head of the crowd first, anyway. They haul the crumpled door of Siska's GTR open, but Pete stops giving a fuck the second Mikey staggers out of the Trans Am all on his own. He yanks free of Andy's hold.

'I'm fine,' Mikey's mumbling to Ray, as Pete gets close.

He's never sounded less fine. Pete has no idea how Ray fought through the throng that fast, but he obviously agrees with Pete's assessment. He's got one arm around Mikey's waist, bearing his weight because Mikey looks like he's going to cry, or be sick, or have a greyout -- or all three, at once. 

'I thought I had it,' Mikey insists, too stiff against Ray. 'I thought -- the car-- ' 

'Hey, Mikes. It's okay,' Ray reassures.

Pete has never felt more singularly useless and frustrated in his entire life. He wants to crowd close to Mikey's other side, wants to help keep him on his feet, wants--

It doesn't matter what he wants. Frank's where he wants to be before he can get there. And with him is Andy, promising that one of them will get the Trans Am out of here, and yes, really, really, they'll get Mikey to the ER if he needs it. Because right now they need to go, to get out before the cops catch up with them. 

Pete ends up having to drive Andy's truck home so Andy can deal with the Trans Am. It feels like an interminable journey. Stopped at a red light ten blocks from the loft, the acrid rush of his anxiety gives way to something else.

Patrick. Who actually sent them off with one of his weird, kind-of-cranky-kind-of-shy smiles before they all left, because he came along with Joe to keep Gerard company.

Patrick. 

Some things don't need fixing. Some things are just fragile. Like windshields. And bones.

The light clips to green. 

So this is what it feels like. 

He guns the engine, and drives the rest of the way home.


	9. Chapter 9

Patrick doesn't know where to stand. 

Everyone's everywhere, or at least that how it feels, with Gerard disappeared up into the loft with Mikey, and Ray beside them; and Joe and Andy and Frank vanished into the garage. He could have followed, he supposes. He has some broken idea of what's happened. But he ducked into the kitchen to get out of the way when everyone first came spilling in, and now he's still in here, and he doesn't want to be, but it feels too late to go join Andy without it being weird, and it's _definitely_ not right to go up to the loft to … whatever. See if Mikey needs something. 

He scrubs at his eyes. He doesn't like having nothing to do. He doesn't like not _knowing_ what to do.

He thinks of Mikey, all but clinging to Ray the whole way up the staircase and suddenly he's very angry. Which, he supposes, is another good reason he shouldn't go out to the garage; he'll just end up snapping at Andy or Joe or Frank, and none of them deserve it. Back to the sitting room, then.

The sight of Pete, sitting legs-curled-to-chest on the far end of Andy's slumpy couch, greets him as soon as he's out of the kitchen, and Patrick's heart stings a little. He'd like to think he's braver than he really is, or that he's at least not as viciously inflexible as he can tend to be -- but being alone in a room with Pete makes him want to turn around and go back into the kitchen and … something. Pretend like he's doing something. Or anything. Just stand there, away from Pete, maybe.

But Pete glances up before he can go anywhere or do anything and Patrick freezes. Pete looks so strung out, all exhaustion and electric anxiety grinding him down to the bone, and Patrick should most certainly walk away from that, especially because all Pete's doing is looking at him, not asking anything of him--

But old habits die hard, or something.

The couch creaks when he sits, trying to keep a respectable distance between him and Pete. And it creaks again when Pete closes that distance, curling up against Patrick's side like the last two years didn't happen. Or, if they did, like Pete's forgiven and forgotten them. Patrick feels him breathe and wishes he could have that much faith in just about anything.

'Hey, Trick,' Pete murmurs.

He never bothered to turn on the high overhead lights, and neither did anyone else, so the only light in the room is the weird stretch of an Ikea organoform floorlamp and the glow filtering down from the loft. Aside from the soft sounds of Gerard and Ray talking, and the muted conversation in the garage, everything is calm and quiet. Patrick supposes he should say something. 

Like, actually _answer_ Pete, maybe but … 

But Pete's warm and definitively unbroken against him. And up in the loft, Mikey is ostensibly just as unbroken, if shellshocked. Patrick's stomach twists over itself, itemizing all the reasons he should be sorry, and all the ways he doesn't know how to say he is. He puts his arm around Pete's shoulders. 

Pete leans into him like there's nothing to stop him, like the past has no weight and is no barrier, and Patrick -- fuck, he wishes he could have kept walking because here they are like two fucking years and this broken thing that used to be a friendship aren't jagged between them, like there's no knife between his ribs, twisting over Pete's warmth. 

Pete sighs against him, puppyish. Soft and un-sad. And the thing is, Patrick knows, he _knows_ \-- and his arm tightens its crook around Pete's shoulder -- that sad Pete will just hide under blankets and wait for sleep or death to take him. And unless shit has really changed, sleep's hardly ever the likely option.

Upstairs, there's still murmuring. 

Patrick can't leave Pete alone under a blanket on a shitty fucking couch, even if Pete's weight against his ribs pushes the metaphorical knife deeper between his metaphorical costal cartilages. 

'I should have stopped him,' Pete mumbles, and because he's curled so close, Patrick can feel how he's hoarse, his voice rattling somewhere in his torso.

Patrick squeezes his shoulder without really thinking about it. 'Any of us could have stopped him, Pete, not just you.'

Pete doesn't say anything, so Patrick soldiers on, because he knows Pete. He knows where this is going to go if someone doesn't drag him out of it. 

'It's not your fault. You did all the right things -- he's here, isn't he? And safe, and asleep.'

He's probably not asleep, not if Patrick has any realistic understanding of Mikey fucking Way, but he should be asleep, he's got all the right environmental conditions to be asleep, it's just that he apparently doesn't. Whatever.

'You helped, okay,' he adds. 'Don't beat yourself up because someone made a stupid choice.'

Pete just exhales, shivery. ' _I'm_ stupid,' he mumbles. 

He slides his arm around Patrick's body, like a stretch, and he's broadcasting in a way that essentially amounts to the background radiation of the universe, how much he doesn't want to let go. And Patrick doesn't have the heart to stop him and -- stupidly, weakly, idiotically -- doesn't even _want_ to fucking stop him. 

He runs his thumb over the curve of Pete's shoulder. 

'You need to sleep. Like for real.'

'Can't sleep,' says Pete, petulant and clearly exhausted.

Patrick doesn't fight him. He's suddenly so tired of fighting, at least right now. Yes, he hates that Pete's this fucking messed up over an idiot kid (Joe, in the back of Patrick's head, rolls his eyes) but it's … the source of his misery doesn't actually matter right now, Patrick realizes. Just that Pete is messed up, and needy, and Patrick's here.

He squeezes Pete's shoulder again, because he doesn't know what else to do and because he's not as mad as he feels like he should be. 

'Rest here, then.' 

He doesn't really mean it the way Pete takes it (or maybe he does, who fucking knows), but Pete sucks in another shaky breath and squirms around until he's got his head rested against Patrick's thigh, his face all but pressed against the soft hollow of Patrick's hip.

'I'm sorry,' Pete mumbles, and Patrick can really only take so much in one day.

'What for?'

Pete squirms again, until Patrick can hardly see his face for how close it is to his hip. 'Everything. I never-- For scaring you--'

Patrick … he must be staring, he knows, even though Pete isn't looking at him. He's staring at the soft shell of Pete's ear, and how his hair falls over it, and somehow -- again, probably because he's a fucking idiot -- it's only just now occurring to him that he never wanted Pete to be _sorry_. Not for before, not for right now, not for any of it. Not even for Mikey.

He just lets his hand rest on Pete's shoulder, like the awkward, hesitant mess he knows he is.

Pete doesn't shrug him off.

'You don't have to be sorry.' His voice has gone all tight and rough somehow.

'I hurt you, though,' Pete says, into Patrick's skin through denim.

Patrick wonders if there's going to be anything left of his heart after all this. 

He can still hear soft muttering up in the loft. If he could protect Pete from that kind of hurt, from the absolute terror of sitting up by a bed and not knowing if it would be okay in the end, he would. But Mikey's safe. Mikey's only in bed because he's scared, not because he's dying. Or he isn't dying right now; Patrick has no guarantees about the future and he doesn't have the energy to think about that. Right here and right now, Mikey's safe and that … matters, somehow.

Which leaves him with Pete, going through an approximation of the kind of heartbreak Patrick remembers, all soft and fragile.

And Patrick … left him like this. Abandoned him to this? Couldn't watch him keep going through things like this, whatever 'this' is, at this point. Whatever way he slices it, it sounds tremendously selfish all of a sudden.

'I hurt you too,' he answers. It feels like he's flaying himself. But here they are together, and how many chances is he going to get, really? 'I shouldn't have.'

'I drove you to it,' is Pete's counter, hollow and thin and very, very small.

'Pete--' Patrick starts, but Pete curls closer, like he can't possibly get close enough. Like he thinks Patrick might try to get away.

'I just want it to be okay, Trick,' he mumbles.

'He'll be all right.' Who knows if that's even what Pete meant, but it's better than silence. 

'Patrick?'

'Yeah?'

Pete doesn't say anything more for enough time that Patrick starts to zone back into the murmuring upstairs. 

'I kissed him,' is what finally comes out, and Patrick can feel how Pete's jaw goes tight against his thigh, like he regrets the words before the final syllable even impacts on the air. 

Patrick can't stop the twitch of his fingers. Pete stiffens, and the moment balances like an egg about to fall off the edge off the kitchen counter. 

A curl of Pete's hair -- late-night softening, product sweated out on the track, heat and alchemy losing their grip on him and easing him back into a gentler state of being -- is sticking out wrong. Patrick reaches for it, tucks it behind Pete's ear and says the first thing that comes into his head, which is: 

'Just rest, Pete.'

Pete unspools. 

Patrick keeps petting his hair and wonders how fucking awful Pete thinks he is, that he clearly thought Patrick would … do something, would push him away or shout or say any fucking thing at all, over _'I kissed him.'_

As if to answer, Pete asks _can you stay?_ and it's barely more than a whisper.

Patrick sucks in a soft breath. He doesn't want to go anywhere else. And maybe he's an idiot for that, too. Probably he is. Definitely.

He curls his hand against the back of Pete's head.

'Yeah.'

Pete tugs at him weakly, fingers hooked into the fabric of Patrick's shirt. 'You need to rest too.'

There isn't room for them to both lie down on the couch, though. And it would look. Bad. Bad if Andy came back in to find him laying with Pete, that close. Worse, if Mikey were to come downstairs and find him curled around Pete like that. 

And why is that?

It's complicated, maybe. It's got an edge to it, part of which is that if Pete should be laying down, that close, with someone, he deserves for it to be Mikey. Mikey, by some miracle, makes Pete smile the way Patrick hasn't seen him smile in years, and if this couch were a bed, and Mikey found them, Patrick would reach out to him to pull him in. For Pete's sake.

And he'd get out, after, if he could make Mikey believe he wasn't trying to take something away from him in the first place. They could have this, and maybe Mikey wouldn't keep doing whatever stupid thing he's doing, and Pete would smile and … Patrick would be happy enough with just that. He'd get out of the way, to let them have that. So that they could keep each other safe.

He wants to rub his eyes again, he's so tired. Instead he slips his fingers through Pete's hair.

'I'm okay like this. I promise.'

Pete doesn't argue anymore. He goes all soft against against Patrick's lap and Patrick can't not watch it happen.

It feels like some kind of minor miracle, watching him fall asleep, and Patrick thinks of him kissing … anyone, really. Like _kissing_ somehow merits any kind of remark. He thinks of all the so-many kisses (and then some) that Pete shared with his million-and-one semi-serious flings before Patrick left and the surely so-many he's had since, and watches how his dark lashes feather against his cheeks and--

_I kissed him._

Mikey, all sharp and raw-boned, sad and snappy and beautiful, tired -- and Pete, like sunshine in the way he glows and then the way the clouds so often scud across his face. 

Patrick sighs, tips his head against the back of the couch, and just watches the ceiling, and thinks, _good. I'm glad._

He doesn't know how long he stays there, staring at the cobwebs too high to reach in the loft's rafters, all rimed with dust and exhaust and whatever else, standing out darker in the dark than the rest of the miasma of shadow up there, but it must be a while because Andy finds them, puzzled together in their tight mismatch, and says everything he has to say in an arched eyebrow at Patrick. 

Patrick stares back, and Andy shrugs and gets a blanket.

But his point's well-made. Patrick can't really stay where he is for ten hours, so when Andy's gone upstairs with a glass of water, Patrick coaxes Pete awake and slides out from under him as gently as he can, because Pete's still drowsy and a little lost in the fog of sleep, and honestly Patrick prefers it that way, hopes it means Pete will go _back_ to sleep. 

Pete catches his hand once they're separate entities again though. 'You're going?' he mumbles.

Patrick doesn't even know what particular thing he's feeling, but he does have a very uncomplicated certainty that sitting with Pete again, letting him snug up again, would be the absolute wrong idea. He squeezes Pete's hand instead. 

'Go back to sleep. I'll see you tomorrow.'

Pete doesn't let him go, so Patrick has to pull away carefully, and tuck Pete's arm back under the blanket. Whatever else he's sorry for, he's not sorry for this, for his impulse to care. Not about Pete and not about Mikey, who's upstairs with his brother, and who shouldn't be with anyone else, because he's safe there, and that's all Patrick wants.

Ray appears on the steps just in time to see him fold the blanket around Pete, but he doesn't say anything. Patrick's grateful for that. Together, they go to the garage to find Joe still sitting with Frank, waiting.

'Ready?' Joe asks.

Patrick just nods. And all the way back to Ray's, he wishes he could have fucking stayed. He thinks, through a vague haze that's half exhaustion and half rage, of Leto, the only one at the nexus of this crisscrossed fucking web of the Ways and Pete and fucking insane death threats and shootings. And looking innocent, probably -- or as innocent as Leto can ever look, which, historically, hasn't been much. But innocent enough to seem somehow disconnected from everything.

And Patrick is so tired and so furious and so … 

Something.

By the time they're back at Ray's place, he can't do anything but crawl into bed, thinking of how warm Pete was against him and how terrified Mikey looked, out on an ugly sidewalk, insisting he was fine. 

***

When Andy gets up the next morning, the Ways are sacked out, two face-down parallel lines on the futon, and Pete's on the couch downstairs, also miraculously still asleep. And alone. Shreds of sunshine slope through the windows and queue up in long shapes along the curve of his shoulder. The blanket's half sloughed off him. Andy straightens it gently, and Pete makes a soft noise, but doesn't otherwise stir. 

Andy keeps quiet, heading for the kitchen to grab a smoothie -- and quieter still when he has to walk past Pete again to get to the garage. It's cool out in the garage, with the sun just hovering over the horizon. He'd normally throw the roller door up and work in the daylight, on a morning like this. It's as clean a gleam as LA ever gets, which is to say not much compared to anywhere else but still better than usual. Typically, Andy would take advantage of that, but when he and his smoothie pause in the door of the garage, he considers the Trans Am where she sits, squat and mulish looking, right there in the middle of the floor. 

He's not much for sentimentality, typically, but he does feel soft and gently protective towards this shit car. Some things deserve the dignity of privacy.

No door, then. He hits the garage lights and pulls his tool racks into place while the fluorescents flicker to life. In the glare, the Trans Am gleams like a dull star, dusty on her chassis and dented -- or, more dented, really -- along the grill. Andy frowns and goes to pop the hood, sucking his lips between his teeth when the hinges click like they shouldn't. At this point, he, Ray, Patrick, and Joe couldn't have possibly gone over this car any more, but it's still pretty obvious that last night's thankfully less-than-catastrophic shakeup has basically shivered a lot of their handiwork to nothing. 

He sighs, leaning into the bay. 

The engine's fine, is the most important thing. Still gleaming, honestly -- Ray Toro has never let anything languish for lack of tender love and care. The radiator took a bump but nothing's broken. 

It's her wheels that have a problem -- he picks that up as soon as he steps back. They're all out of alignment and her suspension needs a check. Andy eyes the chassis and wonders if he can bolt a damn roll-cage into the thing. 

Then he sighs again. 

They don't need a roll-cage, they need to talk Mikey into backing off this stupid course he's plotted for himself. 

He goes to set the hood back down when a gentle knock rumbles through the garage door -- the actual door, not the carport. Andy smears his somehow already greasy hands off on his shorts and goes to answer it, suspicion itching his hackles.

But it's only Joe.

Joe, out in the thin morning, with a sixpack of soda and a grin that doesn't quite cover for his hollow-eyed look.

'Figured you'd be up,' he says.

'Surprised you are,' Andy says, stepping back. 

A look at the wall-clock tells him it's barely seven am.

'Yeah, well. More like no one in that house actually went to sleep,' Joe shrugs. 'Frank spent half the night on the phone with Lazzara, he's pretty fucked up even though Vicky's been mass-texting everyone that Siska's fine, just in for observation overnight. Ray stress-bakes, apparently.' He holds up a plastic bag that looks like it's maybe full of cookies. 'And Patrick … well, you know Patrick,' he finishes, a little helplessly.

Andy, who kept waking up intermittently to hear the shuffling noises of Pete downstairs and the occasional deep-asleep distressed noises the Ways make, takes pity, and also the bag of cookies. He points Joe at the alignment rig he keeps in the corner. 

'Go get that. You're better at tracking than I am, anyway.'

Joe rolls his eyes. 'Bullshit. But nice try, pretending you don't have an ego.'

'I'm modest to a fault.' 

Andy fishes for a cookie. Toro makes everything with non-dairy olive-oil spread and applesauce instead of eggs, so even his baking is always edible. Andy's going to start actually putting on weight if this keeps up. 

The rig rattles as Joe tugs it into place and starts sorting out the wheel clamps. 

'Where's my cookie?' he wants to know, almost smiling.

Andy tosses him one. Crumbs pinwheel off it and bounce off the Trans Am's hood, but Joe leans in and manages an awkward catch before it can hit the floor. True to form, he fits it between his teeth and reaches to position the first clamp in its place. 

'Man, Iero lucked out when he shacked up with Toro,' he says, around his mouthful of cookie. Underslept-induced fatigue or no, he's cheerful in the same boyish way that Andy remembers. Once he gets the second clamp positioned where he wants it, he actually bites the cookie and grins, suddenly happy. 'Frank should seriously put a ring on that.'

Andy snorts. 

'I don't think Frank's Toro's type.'

Joe glances at the wall partitioning the garage from the loft and laughs, softly. 'I guess you're right.' He sits on the floor, without a care in the world for whatever dust and grit may have accumulated there, to finish his cookie. He gives Andy an amused look. 'Plus ... for a dude sporting a fucking smashed knee, Iero sure goes out a lot.'

'We should all be so lucky,' Andy smirks. Joe wrinkles his nose and Andy laughs. 'Hang on, lemme go get the laptop that thing hooks up to.'

Joe, hungry apparently, has worked his way through at least a quarter of the cookies by the time Andy reemerges from his stealth mission back into the loft. 

'You can have actual breakfast,' Andy remarks, setting up the laptop. 

Joe wrests another cookie from the bag. 'I'm good.' 

He grins again, and Andy aches a little. Pete was never much for shop work, and even with his help, it's been quiet in the garage without Joe or Patrick around. In an awkward move, Joe clambers to his feet so he can lean over Andy's shoulder to peer at the laptop. 

'Not as bad as it could be,' Joe observes.

Andy moves to get at what's left of the cookies before Joe devours them in one go. 'No, it's not,' he agrees. 'But it's not good. Get to work, Trohman.'

Joe feigns annoyance, but is clearly happy to have a job.

Surprising no one, the right hand front wheel is completely out of whack on all three axes. Joe gets to that one first, working in time to a rhythm specific to him. He never quite grew out of his faint frown of concentration, the thing that furrows his brow when he's working, and Andy has to swallow a smile. 

The other wheels, by some miracle, are only mildly out compared to that first one -- but Joe gets them all back into line, camber, castor, toe and all, while Andy hammers the grill back into something approaching its normal shape and contemplates the front panelling. He's gonna need a rubber mallet for that one. They're probably making enough noise to raise the dead, but if anyone's bothered, no one comes out to say so.

To at least make it a bit more palatable, though, Andy does reach sync his phone to the garage's bluetooth speakers. Joe's eyes crinkle at the corners at the fist track that bursts through. _Gimme fuel gimme fire--_ he mouths under his breath, nodding down at the balljoint he's finessing back to its proper place, hair bouncing everywhere. Andy laughs at him fondly and starts to lever the Trans Am's dented front panelling off. 

The steelground silver music carries them forward.

Andy gets lost in the rhythm of the work until the garage door clangs again -- no knock this time. 

'Metallica? Really?' Frank announces, loud enough to be heard over the music.

Joe looks up while Andy reaches for his phone to turn down the volume. 

'Yes really,' Joe shoots back.

Frank rolls his eyes. 'At least it's not fucking Motown, I guess.'

'Good morning, sunshine,' Andy offers, wryly.

Frank limp-walks, and tries to pretend he isn't limp-walking, all the way to the toolbench and leans against it. He's got a tall canister in one arm that he sets down, heavily, on the bench.

'Some weird home-made mint iced tea from Toro,' he announces, otherwise ignoring Andy. 'You're welcome.'

'Ray sent you out here to hand off tea?' Joe asks, incredulous. 

Frank reaches for the bag of cookies. 'No, I couldn't get Toro or Stump to stop fucking detailing every car in the garage, so I came hoping that I could bribe one of you fucks into doing something healthier than breathing exhaust fumes and turtle wax all day.' He arches one eyebrow at Joe. 'But apparently not.'

'What counts as 'healthier'?' Andy asks, dusting off his hands and taking the tea. 

He nudges Frank over to one of the rickety stools he keeps down here. Frank glares at him but sits. 

'Playing Xbox? Coming over to our place so we can use 'hospitality' as an excuse to get the other two out of the garage too? Maybe, oh I dunno, having a quick talk about how there's no way in hell we're letting Mikeyway get behind the wheel to race again?' He folds his arms. 'We aren't, are we? I mean this was a fun little experiment and all, but I like the kid when he's walking and talking and breathing.'

'It was one tangle,' says Joe, but he sounds, if not bothered, then wry. 'If he really wants to race…'

'At no point in this entire proceeding has he actually wanted to race,' Frank says. 'I don't know what the fuck is going on in his head, but he doesn't want to race. Do you even see him on a Friday night? He fucking shuts down. I don't know what the hell happened yesterday but maybe it was a blessing. He's got to stop.'

This is what Andy likes about Frank: he's direct. You always know where you stand with Frank Iero. And while sometimes that means you can always guarantee you'll have an argument with Frank Iero, on this occasion …

'We can't just order him around,' Joe points out.

'No,' Andy agrees. 'But Frank's right. Maybe we won't have to -- maybe this is enough of a scare. At least to get him off the track for a few weeks, so he can get his head on straight again.'

Frank looks mollified, like he was squaring up for a fight and now his ruffled Chihuahua hackles can settle back down. 

'Yeah, nah, he'd need to get some sleep to get his head on straight, and from what I hear that's still not happening,' says Joe, wriggling back under the Trans Am to go for the suspension. 

They can just barely see his legs, but there's a particular poise to him that Andy recognizes as the same posture he gets when he's working on anything else. That hasn't changed either, Andy realizes: the way Joe always knows what's needed and just does it, competent as anything and humming Metallica as he goes. 

Frank turns his gaze back to Andy. 'Still a night owl, huh?' 

Andy shrugs. 

'He gets texts. He leaves. Gerard sighs mournfully like a consumptive heroine on my spare bed and tries to peptalk the details out of him when he gets home, but Mikey stonewalls him every time. It's not every night but …' he shrugs. 'What am I going to do? I'm not his mom.'

Joe, because he's apparently positioned himself as Mikey's advocate even if Andy can tell he doesn't exactly think Mikey's making the best life choices here, says, 'He's an adult, he can go out. Like we don't all go out some nights? C'mon.'

There's a snick of humour in the way he says it that cuts the worried atmosphere, and again, Andy's fucking missed having Joe Trohman in his garage.

Frank aims a desultory kick at the sole of Joe's shoe. 'Oh yeah, don't think we haven't noticed all the nights you're out and about, Mr. Trohman.'

'Yeah, your mom sends her regards.' Joe's voice echoes under the chassis, and Andy doesn't need to see him to see the grin on his face. 

Frank scrunches his nose. 

'Jealous?' Andy asks him, and he can't help the way his mouth goes up at the corners. 'That knee has to be making things rough, buddy.'

'Nah,' says Frank, raising an eyebrow at Andy mischievously. 'It counts as physio if I use the right pages out of the Kama Sutra.'

Andy smirks right back at him and from under the car Joe says, 'Glad to hear you're getting your money's worth with Susan. She taking on additional clientele?'

'What about you, though, Hurley?' Frank asks, ignoring Joe. 'Aren't all these houseguests putting a crimp in your bachelor lifestyle?'

'Pete Wentz has been my houseguest for a decade; I can manage.' 

'Are you telling me you've had a ten year dry spell or that you've been banging Wentz for a decade and he somehow managed not to tell anyone?'

Joe laughs and pushes himself out from under the Trans Am. He clearly wiped his hand over his face at some point because there's a smear of grease like a halfhearted attempt at jungle camo cutting over the bridge of his nose, from eyebrow to cheekbone. 

'Definitely not that last one. Pete would've told _everyone_. My money's on Andy just waiting til Pete's distracted and having orgies in the kitchen.'

'Do not,' says Andy, 'even suggest the idea of orgies in my kitchen. Don't give him ideas.'

'No, Andy, _you_ could be having the orgies.'

On his stool, around another half a cookie, Frank huffs.

'Think of the possibilities,' Joe says very seriously.

'Like gastroenteritis and STDs all at once?'

'Like the human centipede,' Frank muses, and Andy just … nope. 

'I have a perfectly good bed,' he says, because he has some dignity. 

Frank winks at him, because he has none. Joe makes an undignified noise and gets up to snag the tea.

'Toro did say he was coming to help, at some point,' Frank adds, returning to what, at this point, feels like a very much abandoned milemarker in the conversation. 'I think he kind of has a thing for this car.'

'Just the car?' Joe chimes.

Frank gives him a smug look. 'I mean, far be it from me to put words in his mouth.'

Andy has to swallow another smirk, mostly to avoid egging Frank on. He dusts his hands on his pants again and heads for the door back into the loft.

'I'm making coffee for anyone who wants some,' he announces. He'll be damned if Ray Toro shows up at his house and he doesn't at least have _some_ amenities to offer. Plus maybe someone should at least check on the intrepid Way brothers and his eternally tortured housemate.

'I want sugar,' Frank calls after him.

'I'm sure,' Joe drawls.

Andy just rolls his eyes and kicks his way into the house, ignoring them.

***

Patrick has probably had better ideas than showing up to another race night, he's pretty sure, but you know what? Fuck it. And fuck Joe, for giving him a This Is A Bad Idea look, like he didn't already know, and fuck Andy for giving him a similar look, about two minutes after he said that yes, he would in fact like to join the rest of their … mashup crew … on this particular evening. 

And fuck everyone else for not getting it. Whatever 'it' is. 

He leans up against the side of Andy's truck. He drove the Bluebird here but he left left it on the outer ring of the lot, parked in a sea of other non-racing vehicles -- so now he's just huddled by the grill, peering around for Pete. There. Flitting through the post-race festivities like a bright flame, a little mean, a little happy, and all dazzle. 

It's weird to watch him. He's so himself, in a way that Patrick remembers, but … 

Well. There's a reason Patrick wanted to be here, no matter how many times Joe and Andy rolled their eyes at him. 

Pete dances through the crowd, having found Saporta among Suarez's crew. They're too far away for Patrick to hear their conversation particularly well over the music, but he can see how Pete grins at something Novarro says, all bright and a little too stiff, like cracked glass. 

Andy's done all his cooking for the evening, so now the grill's just cooling, and some vegan sausages and hamburgers sit in a tray on the small foldable table. Andy is nowhere to be found, though, which. That's his prerogative, Patrick supposes. Ray's off somewhere -- Patrick can just see the soft fluff of his hair over the crowd -- and Frank sort of grumbled that he'd be right back before lurching off into the crowd to … Patrick isn't sure what. He probably can't get all that far with his knee hurting.

Which leaves Patrick and Mikey, still around the grill. And not talking.

Mikey's fingers flit over his phone. The world could be coming to an end and he wouldn't notice, Patrick's pretty sure.

It's just as well. If everyone's going to spend their time wondering why Patrick's here (and insisting, however silently, that he shouldn't be), then Patrick's going to stand here and wonder why _Mikey's_ here. Or why anyone else agreed to let him come, when he would so obviously rather be back at Andy's.

_No, I want to just … see how tonight goes._

No one called him on that lie. Patrick watches him for a few seconds and tries not to be obvious about it. Or obviously annoyed.

Just yesterday, Andy insisted that the Trans Am's suspension needed more work. Patrick suspects it's a lie, but he's glad for it. At least it kept Mikey from trying to drive. At least he's close, and Ray's here too, to keep an eye on him. At least, for tonight, there's no risk that Patrick would have had to see Pete's face if something happened out on the track and Mikey were in the middle of it. 

He watches Mikey flit through his phone again. Then put it away to pick at his thumbnails. Then pull it back out. Then put it away. He's so insubstantial, shadowed up against the embayment where Ray's truck is parked kitty-corner to Andy's. Not for the first time, Patrick wonders if he was always like this. If he was always this attenuated, from the moment he first showed up on the scene. Probably. It's the kind of thing Pete would go for. Has gone for.

But maybe Mikey's a little more whole when Pete's close by.

That's worth keeping safe, isn't it?

All of a sudden, Patrick's annoyed all over again. 

He peels his eyes away from Mikey, looks for Pete again, and finds him mostly by the fact that he's sitting on the hood of Novarro's orange monstrosity. It's impossible to miss that ugly fucking car. 

Pete's grinning though. He's grinning, and he's _happy_ in a looser way than he was, even half an hour ago. Saporta's got an arm draped around him, maybe that's part of it. Patrick never quite understood their whole … thing … but Gabe Saporta is making Pete laugh, and that's good somehow. Safe somehow.

The sound of Saporta's voice carries over the general din of the crowd, even if Patrick can't make out what he's saying. Pete laughs, and that carries too, and Patrick is aware that he's being sort of a freak of nature, but it's the best he can do. Maybe a different person would want to join them. Apologies on a couch don't add up to much if you keep your distance afterwards.

But Pete's still grinning and Patrick doesn't want to shatter that.

He glances back to the little niche between Ray's truck and Andy's to find only _actual_ shadows. Under any other circumstance, it would be almost funny -- or at the very least, impressive -- that Mikey could disappear so fast, and without Patrick noticing. But it isn't funny. 

His blood's just cold.

He whips around, scanning the crowd. The rational part of his brain, insofar as he has one (and some days he seriously doubts that he does), insists that he's being ridiculous. Mikey probably just went to call Gerard. Or to take a leak. Or just to walk.

A clutch of people sway and step in time to an all-pervasive thrum of music. Maybe Mikey went over to them, to join the dancing.

Patrick almost rolls his eyes at himself. Because, yeah, sure. Mikey so definitely seemed like he was in a dancing mood. 

He can't see Mikey in that direction of the crowd anyway. Pete drags Saporta toward the music, all fireworks and bright neon excitement, and that's fine. Fine. Good. In the other direction, Patrick spots Andy, over by the edge of the crowd, helping Frank limp in the general direction of the trucks. Fine, that's fine too. 

But Mikey's gone, smoke to the wind. Patrick grits his teeth. 

No one particularly makes way for him when he steps into the crowd, people just keep milling, and the bass beat of the music seems somehow louder, even though Patrick's moving away from the party. It thrums and thrums, and hits too hard inside the walls of his chest.

No Mikey, still. Patrick's jaw hurts with how hard it's clenched. 

He spills out onto the open lot, where the throng thins. Fewer people, more cars. More open air, too. Patrick almost feels like he can breathe while he glances around, his gaze slipping over this person or that. His heart doesn't slow, though. Above him, the sky bleeds dying purples into velvet dark, and over the cars, out towards the east, he can see where the night rises. An inkstain, spreading, up from a horizon eclipsed by the rockforms of the city.

One more glance around. 

He almost doesn't see Mikey. What he does see: the loose gestalts of human bodies and the slashes of car colors interrupting each other like zebra stripes in grassland. Some people walking, some laughing, some murmuring to each other, pressed close against the side of a car. 

And then it comes together. 

The tableau, in a weird, recursive, iterative visualisation. He sees. He sees angles and forms, familiar, bent oddly, somehow labelled _Mikey_ in his head. For one fleeting second, the wrenched up feeling in his chest loosens. Then he recognises the rest of what he's seeing, and then he processes it, in pieces, and realises who the other, less immediately familiar shape is, the one pressing Mikey back against the driver's side door of a dark blue Golf with racing stripes. 

Mikey holds himself as stiff and sharp as Patrick's ever seen. There's barely room to breathe between the metal of the car and long, leering figure trapping him against the smooth curve of a door, and-- 

\--Patrick doesn't even think, he just moves. 

The bones of Leto's forearm grind when Patrick grabs him, and if it hurts, he doesn't care, he doesn't fucking care. He yanks for good measure.

Surprise splashes on Leto's face; then aggravation, in dark shadow. Gearing up for some kind of fight, in which vicious territorialism, if nothing else, is the backing motivation. And then the aggravation clears and, just like Patrick, he appears to piece together exactly what he's looking at. 

He smiles, all teeth. 

'Patrick fucking Stump.'

Patrick yanks him again, digging nails into skin for good measure. Leto doesn't quite take the bait, but the pinch of pain makes his eyes flit wide, just for a second. 

On the order of bad to worse ideas, the worst idea, right now, would be to egg Jared Leto into an actual fight -- but god, Patrick wants to. Like a bloodletting, however stupid, would make up for every old, festering wound that never healed. But just beyond Leto, Mikey stands backed up against a car, too quiet and too still, like he's trying to wake up from a dream. 

And some things matter more than righteous violence. 

Patrick shoves Leto, twists past him, gets himself between Leto and Mikey, and there's no space, no space at all. Just Mikey, shivering up against his back, flinching where Patrick has his hand behind himself, backing the pair of them up as far as they can go between Leto and the car. 

Leto looms, his eyes alight with the _hey, baby, you come here often?_ that he isn't saying.

'Long time no see, Patrick,' he leers, and Mikey, at Patrick's back, goes ironrod rigid again. 'Anaheim got too boring for you? Or did you miss me?'

It would be so easy to hit him, to catch knuckles on teeth, to make him spit pink. 

Patrick thought the same thing, two years ago. How much would it take? How many punches, how much blood? Would he look like Pete did, crying and scared, because it hurt too much? But Mikey's barely breathing at Patrick's back, and Patrick--

\--won't put him through this. He reaches for Mikey's wrist, and pulls him away. Away from the car, out from the threat of Leto's reach. Leto's eyes glitter.

'Tell Wentz I send my regards,' he says, but Patrick hasn't let Mikey go.

He doesn't let Mikey go until they're out of Leto's sight, down the line of cars. Until they've reached the Bluebird, specifically. Until he says _c'mon_ , as gently as he can manage, and Mikey doesn't fight him, just sinks into the passenger seat. 

Maybe Patrick can't fix whatever happened, or was going to happen, or would have happened -- but he can do this. Kick the engine to life, throw the car into gear. 

The road hisses away somewhere beneath them, and Mikey just stares straight ahead, bruise-colored smears of exhaustion under his eyes, his thumbs hooked into the frayed cuffs of his ever-present hoodie. 

It would be so easy to hurt him, if you wanted to. 

In a hospital room that Patrick can't forget, Pete blinked awake, his pupils blown too wide with morphine. _You're here,_ he said.

Patrick grips the steering wheel so hard his knuckles ache. The city clips past; whatever street they're on. Glowing storefronts, sallow streetlights. Mikey doesn't say a single fucking thing, and Patrick remembers wanting to take Pete's hand, wanting to tell him he wasn't going anywhere.

He did, in the end. Take his hand. And then leave. 

He couldn't put it back together.

'You shouldn't have done that,' Mikey says, softly.

'Bullshit.' Patrick winces as soon as he says it, and the word hangs in the air, and he can't take it back. 'He was hurting you.'

He tries not to sound angry this time, he really does. Maybe it works. Maybe he doesn't actually _sound_ any way at all. But he's holding the steering wheel so tight he thinks he might break it. Mikey stiffens.

'He never touched me. I was fine.'

'Mikey--'

'I was _fine_.' Mikey's voice snaps this time, sharp. 'I didn't need you to swoop in to the rescue.'

Patrick is this. Close. To yelling. And it's so hard to swallow. 

'Let me take you back to Andy's.'

'Why? So you can tell everyone else?'

'So he can't come after you again.'

Mikey makes a wrenched, hollow sound that might be a laugh, and draws himself back, like if he presses hard enough against his seat, he'll disappear into it. 

'You don't know fucking shit all, stop acting like you have to take care of me.'

_Patrick? Patrick--_ He'd never seen Pete cry before, not like this. He fought his way into the ambulance, he held his hand. He watched Pete's eyes roll with terror, and a paramedic fiddled with a strap, making the gurney travel-safe, and all Patrick could think was, be careful, please be careful. He's hurting.

'Someone has to,' he manages, 'since you won't do it yourself.'

'Because you give a fuck?' Mikey won't look at him. 

'Yeah I give a fuck, Mikey, he's a fucking shithead.'

'Please. I don't need you to follow me home, I didn't need you to follow me here, or follow me anywhere.'

'Mikey--'

'Stop _lying_ , Patrick!' Mikey's voice breaks on something, one pitch too high. The warble of hysteria. 'You don't care -- you've never cared.'

Patrick … doesn't know what to do with that. And he can't look at Mikey anymore, all of a sudden. His stomach twists over itself, trying to repair or avoid an abrupt ache, the dark kind. The sort of thing you feel all the way down to your groin.

'I do care,' he says softly. 'Even if you don't.' The street scrolls up to meet them, passes under the car, and is gone, leaving only more winding asphalt ahead. 'We can go back to the loft, or we can go to the party.'

Mikey shrugs. 'Whatever.' 

His voice is thin and cold and tired and mean.


	10. Chapter 10

The worst part about being stuck in this fucking car -- and there's nothing about being stuck in this car that's good -- is that Patrick will call him on his bluff, won't let the facade ride, because apparently he can see through Mikey's bullshit. 

Apparently he's the only one. 

Mikey wants to go back to the party about as much as he wants to go swimming in shark-infested waters. He wants to go home, he wants Gerard and he wants to put a blanket over his head like he's five and it'll make the monster go away, but the monster has his fucking phone number now, and if he goes home it can still get him. 

Leto always smiles like a shark, all teeth and cold. 

Mikey can't go back to the party and he can't go home, so the only middle ground is the Bluebird and Patrick's level … it's not a stare, it's just a look. A look that won't take Mikey's bullshit. 

He can't. His throat closes, and he looks away. 

'Whatever.'

Patrick makes … some noise. Mikey prays that maybe this awful quiet and the rough blockage in his throat, the surliness it lends him, will piss Patrick off enough to make him pull over, get out, and leave Mikey here. All he gets is a brief flutter of movement, on the periphery of his vision

His shoulder twitches, anticipating a touch that never comes. 

It's not fucking worth it. That's what he can't say. That's what's stuck in his throat. And he _wants_ to, he wants to say it, or, to yell it, or scream it, or bite into Patrick's fucking throat like maybe that would make him believe it if only Mikey could say it hard enough, with teeth. 

_It's not worth it, you idiot,_ I'm _not worth it, Leto's going to hurt everyone, all of you,_ you _, you fucking moron, and why--_

Mikey's stomach lurches.

Patrick was about to fucking throw down with a guy who could have him killed and he has no fucking idea. For Mikey.

_Think of Pete,_ he wants to spit. Think of Pete, because maybe _Pete_ might make Patrick stumble on his self-righteous crusade to … prove he's right, or whatever he's doing. 

Think of Pete, because Patrick always watches Pete, as soon as Pete's in watching-distance. 

Think of Pete, because Pete's so obviously and so completely in love, and if Patrick can't see that, he's either selfish or an idiot. And Mikey's not worth Patrick's laying down his life, and he's not worth Pete's heartbreak.

_Think of Pete. You'll hurt him._

But the car's moving and all those words wither on Mikey's tongue. 

The traffic smears its movement around them. It's not raining but it feels like it should be, the way the colours runnel together, glossed and pendant and flowing away from the car as Patrick weaves through the streets. Things come back into focus when they stop at a red light. 

Mikey entertains a brief fantasy of bolting from the car in this short moment while it's still stopped, but then Patrick speaks in a strange tone Mikey can't interpret. 

'It's not your fault, you know.'

'Fuck off.' 

Another sliver of Mikey's heart pares off, falls away, leaves something bleeding in his chest. 

They're so close in the cockpit of this car that he can feel the way Patrick steels himself for this argument he's apparently decided they're finally going to have. 

'Mikey. It's not. Your. Fault.'

It hurts, for some stupid reason. Everything hurts -- Patrick's voice, what he's saying, the way Leto looked at the both of them, the bruising pressure of Patrick's weird, unflagging, incongruous kindnesses and the way Mikey can't trust them. The burner phone digging a corner into his ass, still in his pocket. 

It's his fault, and … fuck.

How many people could forgive him all these lies, for all this time? Gerard, maybe. No one else. Not Patrick, most of all. 

'I hit Siska for him,' he snarls. Teeth. Blood-fury. 

Because he did. He knew what he was doing, at no point was he confused. This _is_ his fault. Mikey's done more than a few things he regrets under the influence of other things he regrets, and this wasn't that. He knows the difference. No one made him do this, beyond setting a tripwire and letting his own stupidity carry him down. 

This is _his own fucking fault._

And he scared everyone, and he let them help him, and he let Gerard hold him after, and he listened to Pete mumble things he couldn't hear, and he listened to Patrick answer and--

'What does he have on you?' is Patrick's question. He sounds flat and angry and -- and that's what Mikey expected, but the question isn't. 

Mikey stares at him.

The light flicks, red to green and changes the cast of the light around them, orange and darkness and green ghastliness on the high, pale arch of Patrick's cheekbones. 

Patrick cuts him a look, just a millisecond long .

'I'm not an idiot,' he says. 'And you're not a murderer. So tell me what the hell he had to do to get you to fucking run someone off the track.'

What the fuck does it matter, is what Mikey doesn't say. Siska could have died, Mikey could have killed him. It was sheer fucking luck he didn't. He opens his mouth and can't find the words, and he expects Patrick to fill the silence but Patrick doesn't, he just waits, unrelenting. 

'What do you think?' Mikey snaps.

'I don't know.' Patrick's jaw is tight. 'I've been trying to figure that out, Mikey, why you'd go anywhere near him, but I've got nothing, so stop playing bullshit. Please.'

Mikey bites his lip. Patrick can drive around all fucking night, he thinks. Drive and drive until he gets pissy enough with Mikey's stonewalling that he stops the car and shoves Mikey out into the street. Mikey doesn't even know where they are right now. Nowhere near Andy's place, that's for sure -- and not near Toro's house either. 

He could start walking and never turn around. 

But his throat hurts and he can't lie and he can't shut up, either. The actual truth worms its way out. 

'I can't tell you.'

'Yeah, that's. Not reassuring.' 

'What difference does it make?' Fuck it, Mikey just wants him to get mad. 

Please just fucking get mad.

Patrick makes a left. He's so sure in control of the car, which feels incongruous in this moment.

'I don't care if you hate me, Mikey. The other guys deserve the fucking truth.'

His voice is higher-pitched than Mikey's ever heard it be before. He sounds like he's the one hurting, and Mikey just wishes he'd leave it alone, go away and let Mikey crash and burn instead of somehow making him want to say sorry all the time. He _is_ sorry. He's sorry for every night he made Pete worry, sorry for every morning when he lied to Gerard, sorry for every single thing Patrick taught him that helped him pick the right moment to turn the wheel in on another human being. 

And Patrick just waits like he can't possibly be deterred. 

Mikey finally manages: 'Gerard--' 

Patrick's knuckles go white on the steering wheel even as he indicates at the turn. 

There's no appreciable change in the smoothness of his gear changes but his voice has something violent in it when he says, 'Gerard _what_?'

Fear rises in Mikey's gorge again. It never goes away, really. It just goes up and down. 

'He was going to hurt Gerard.'

Patrick exhales so slowly. Mikey waits and doesn't know which way this is going to fall out. 

'What did he want?' is Patrick's next question. 'Tonight, what did he want, why was he talking to you?'

Mikey genuinely doesn't know what Leto _wants_. But he knows the shape of what Patrick's afraid of, because it's what Gerard's afraid of and what Andy's tried to gently talk out of him as well -- some fear that he's … a battered boyfriend, or something. It worries them, but it also grosses them out, or something -- they never actually bothered to ask him. They just … whatever. Told themselves a story and never said it out loud. Obliquity was their protection, maybe for everyone.

But this has been a fucking week of broadside collisions, so.

'I don't know, Patrick, what do you _think_ he wants from me?'

Let him fill the rest in. Let him rear away. 

Patrick doesn't. The minute muscles around his jaw tic, for a moment, but that's all that happens. He drives, and Mikey's lie hangs in the air like a miasma. 

'Okay,' Patrick says slowly. 'That's. Okay.' 

He doesn't say it like 'that's okay'. He says it like he's processing. 

'Sorry,' Mikey sneers. 'Did you think it was something ... better than that?' 

'Mikey,' Patrick's voice is so even that it's disconcerting. Like he's strapped down everything he may or may not be feeling, just to be able to talk. 

He can see Patrick casting around for something. 

Mikey could spit venom. 'Sorry to let you down.' 

Still, it gets him nothing. They pull into a gas station, and the indicator ticks, metronomic; the kind of sound that leads up to a blast. Overhead, the anaemic lights glare down on them. Patrick clicks the engine off and suddenly the world is a lot quieter and gloomier. Mikey can't see the expression on Patrick's face, but he can hear just fucking fine.

'Tell me something.' Patrick's voice is so soft it burns. 'If this were flipped. If I were telling you what you're telling me. Is it my fault?'

Honestly, it would hurt less if Patrick just shoved him out onto the tarmac and laid into him with a fucking sledgehammer. It would hurt less and it would be less obvious than this. Because there's the answer Patrick wants -- the big neon sign, the 'no, of course not'. And there's the truth, which is that it's different, because Patrick would never be in this situation. 

And then there's the answer that should get Mikey what he deserves, which is 'yes.' 

'It's not the same thing,' he struggles. 

He can't look at Patrick, not directly. He can't look at him just looking out the windshield at the grey nighttime pallor of the gas station, the fringes of his hair catching colour in the ugly lights.

They're going to sit here in this parking space, bleached in neon, for the rest of time, because Patrick wants answers and Mikey can't. He just. He just can't. 

'Do you want me to fill up the tank?' he asks when Patrick keeps waiting.

'No.'

Patrick kicks his door open and takes the keys.

It's almost funny. 

If Mikey were going to bolt, he'd just get out and run, he wouldn't take the fucking car, but whatever. He doesn't, in all honesty, know why he's still here. He continues to sit and not run and wonder why he's not running, and know that the answer is that he's a coward who's more afraid of being alone than he is of anything else.

His phone, his actual phone, vibrates and startles him halfway to a heart attack. 

_dude where are u?_

It's Pete. Mikey … doesn't even know where to start. 

_gas station_. It's the best he can do. 

It takes Pete 0.25 seconds to text back: _wtf why_

And then _thats s sucky date man_.

_im with stump, we needed gas_ Mikey sends back, because if he's reveals that he's got appropriate supervision maybe the questions will stop. 

_sapota says tell him he needs to up his seduction game_

Mikey should have known Pete wasn't the only person nucleated around his phone. 

_he needs to treat u better. ur worth at least a bed mikeyway_

Mikey's whole heart hurts. He misses Pete so acutely all of a sudden, because he can hear his fucking intonation coming through the typos. The hours they used to spend in this car come rushing back, the radio playing bullshit and the taste of cookies made with actual butter and chocolate, and Pete's smile. 

He hopes Patrick hates him. 

_ha ha_ he texts back, and puts his phone away. It buzzes again but he ignores it, because Patrick's coming back to the car. 

They make it about five stop lights in a direction that Mikey's fairly sure is back to the loft when Patrick says, 'You're going to tell me to fuck off, but before you do, just fucking listen. You don't have to ... be hurt, okay. So, like, you can tell me it's not like that and you chose this and you're fine, whatever. Tell me whatever you feel like you have to. But--' he shrugs, the steering wheel hissing through his hands as the car turns, so fucking smooth, so fucking natural '--you're not on your own.'

Mikey wishes he could believe in the universe Patrick apparently lives in. It sounds like a lovely fucking place. There are probably unicorns. 

Sucks to be Mikey, though, because he lives in the universe where he's running drugs for a guy who attempts murder on the semi-regular, and all his friends think he's got a bad boyfriend who hits him, apparently. 

So Mikey doesn't say anything. 

Patrick for his part lets the silence drag just as much until he adds a postscript that sounds like it hurts to force out, 'But for the record? No one threatens someone's family and then asks to sleep with them. That's … not asking.'

Given that no one's asked Mikey to sleep with them, maybe this is the universe handing him a metaphor. 

They make it to the loft without screaming at each other, and that feels like a failure, too.

No one else is back yet, Mikey realizes, as they step through the door -- but he can hear Joe and Gerard talking in the kitchen. Their voices make him think of a breeze through silver chimes, and all he wants is to go upstairs and hide until Gerard comes to find him and they can both go to sleep. But he feels all strange and numbed out, and maybe that's why Patrick manages to herd him to the kitchen before he can do anything else. 

He's so tired, and the burner phone threatens so much, even though it hasn't gone off yet. But it could. It could, and then--

'Hey!' 

Gerard sounds so happy, turning to greet them at the first sound of their entrance. And then he catches sight of Mikey.

Mikey knows how bad he must look, or at least that he looks bad enough for something in Gerard and Joe's respective expressions to change. 

'How was the race?' Joe asks. It's crystal fucking clear what kind of answer he's expecting.

'Fine,' Mikey manages, trying to head Patrick off -- but the word uncurls, thin and pale and unconvincing, and he doesn't know if he can keep lying.

At his side, Patrick exhales through his nose. 'Are you going to tell them?'

He sounds exactly the way he sounded in the car. Not quite angry and not quite anything else. Just arrested, like some part of him turned off and went away, and now he's just Dealing With It -- whatever 'it' is. That he thinks Mikey's … something. Trapped in some kind of bullshit relationship. Or whatever other worst case scenario he's imagining, of which Mikey didn't bother to disabuse him.

All Mikey can do is stand there, waiting for the burner phone to go off.

'Tell us what?' Joe asks, a little halting.

Mikey can't not look at Gerard, who's just sitting there, not talking in the arrival of what feels like an immeasurably deep silence. _It's okay,_ Mikey wants to tell him. Might be able to tell him, if he were braver, or a better liar, or if Gerard hadn't already woken up too many times to hug him and let him be scared and know, as well as Mikey knew, that nothing, nothing at all was okay.

Out in the sitting room, because he has perfect fucking timing, the door groans open and the familiar fall of Andy's gait stomps over the threshold -- followed, presumably, by everybody fucking else. Mikey's insides go to water.

'I caught Leto,' Patrick starts, 'threatening Mikey tonight.'

It's … the least accusatory way he could have said it, Mikey knows and should be grateful for it, but now Gerard and Joe are both staring at him, and Gerard's gone from frozen to bloodless, and Andy, Ray, Frank, and _Pete_ step into the kitchen just in time to hear what Patrick said. Andy has to physically catch Pete by the shoulder to … who knows what.

Mikey has the hysterical thought that it's now, right here right now, that some cord will finally snap. 

Joe sucks a breath between his teeth. 

'Well. Fuck. Is everyone okay?'

_No._ Mikey could choke on it, just as much as he's choking on _yes, it's fine, I'm fine, stop fucking worrying about me_. It would be so much easier if Gerard and Pete weren't both looking at him. By way of what amounts to Brownian motion at this point, with everyone all crowded in, he's ended up close to Gerard, and he's just sorry. He's so, so sorry.

'We walked out okay,' Patrick promises, because apparently he's doing all the talking right now. 

Ray has his arm around Frank, who is making quite a go of looking like he doesn't need help standing up, despite all evidence to the contrary. It's just as well, because Patrick's next line is:

'But he's been blackmailing Mikey.'

'What the fuck?' Pete snaps, bristling like a feral cat.

Frank agrees, judging by the fact that he essentially says the same thing right on top of Pete.

Ray's gentle, though. 'Mikey,' he says. 'What happened?'

Mikey wonders if he looks like he's shaking, or if it just feels like he is. 'Nothing _happened_.'

He can't look at Ray, though. He can't … move, even. He's just stuck here, somehow looking at Patrick who won't stop looking at him, until Gerard, just on the periphery of his vision, reaches for his hand and catches his fingers like he used to do when they were little -- and then Mikey really does think he's going to be sick.

'They deserve to know,' Patrick says softly. 'Mikey. C'mon.'

Mikey does understand he's supposed to say something, even if that something is another lie, but it's. He can't. His vision just tunnels a little. 

'It's not your fault,' Patrick says, again, fucking _again._ 'He made you.'

'Fuck,' Andy breathes, after an indeterminate amount of time has passed. 'Mikey, Siska--?'

Mikey would actually lurch away, except Gerard's still holding his hand, and he feels stiff as a board anyway, trapped in his own body somehow.

'What?' Joe starts, but Andy finishes his thought, having caught on.

'Leto's had it out for Siska for months.'

Frank's eyes snap to him, startled, then darkening in grim agreement. 'He has.'

'Oh, Mikes,' Gerard says very softly. He sounds like _he_ might cry, so.

Great.

This is going so well.

Mikey just wants to curl into him and tell him he didn't mean it, he didn't, he just wanted it to be good, or at least better, and he doesn't know how it got like this. But nothing happens. He's still not moving, even though he keeps thinking about it. 

'Siska's fine, though,' Ray reassures. 'Vicky promised. That's good … but it could be bad, if Leto's holding onto that vendetta.'

Joe exchanges a weird look with Andy, whose fingers have gone pale on Pete's shoulder.

'Are you fucking kidding me?' Pete growls. He doesn't say it to or at Mikey, but it stings like he did. It's the first feeling Mikey's had all night besides cold horror. 'Now will you assholes listen to me? We can't keep -- we have to _do_ something about him.'

'Pete,' Andy starts.

'No, fuck off, Hurley. It's the same shit with him every. Fucking. Time. And what? Does someone _actually_ have to die before anyone decides to knock his bullshit house of cards--'

'--Pete.'

It's Patrick this time, and Pete full-on stops, mid-breath. Patrick doesn't sound angry, but he does sound … something. It's like watching someone catch a crystal globe under their foot and not quite bear their full weight down on it. And Mikey can't stand here for this. He can't stand here and witness the umpteenth unstitching of whatever ugly trench of a wound they're all still living with. Pete and Patrick are just _looking_ at each other in that tense way that they do, and they all think Leto is just some racketeering sleazebag. They have no idea.

Mikey would rather die than have to watch Pete and Patrick have it out over this. He'd rather die than let Leto hurt anyone like this, but so much worse.

'Cool it,' Patrick says, softly. 'Getting angry isn't gonna help anyone right now.'

Mikey's breath actually pops somewhere in the back of his throat. 

Gerard's fingers are so gentle around his. 'You want to stay in for a few days?'

'I think that's a good idea,' Andy says, once it's clear that Mikey still won't answer. 'We should all lay low.'

Frank and Pete both look … less than happy with that suggestion, but Frank also looks too tired to argue, and Pete. Pete's still watching Patrick, like something about Patrick makes him restless.

Patrick just nods. His eyes look a little too red, like he's tired too. And it's true, Mikey knows. He has a tendency to exhaust people, and he's apparently quite proficient at exhausting Patrick all the time. 

'Okay,' Patrick breathes.

It's such gentle, weary agreement, and he doesn't look at Mikey when he says it. He glances at Pete again, for half a second, then looks at Andy -- and for whatever fucking reason, that's enough to click reality back into place.

Mikey skirts past Pete, past Frank, and Ray, and Patrick, to go for the steps before anyone else can say anything. Not like it matters. No one tries to stop him this time. It's like they trust him not to _actually_ run, even though he keeps thinking that he should. The loft is just dark and quiet, except for the snatches of conversation that he only half hears somewhere in between hating himself and wishing someone, any one of them, would have laid into him.

Feet shuffle around in the kitchen. Then eventually head for the door. 

He hears muffled goodbyes, and all of a sudden he remembers the sound of Pete and Patrick talking down on the couch, however many nights ago. By the time Gerard comes upstairs, Mikey aches all over, and for no good reason.

Gerard doesn't say anything, because he never has to say anything. He settles next to Mikey and Mikey curls into him, careful as he can be of Gerard's shoulder. He's never been very good at crying, but all of a sudden, he can't breathe normally. Gerard doesn't push him away. He doesn't do anything except let Mikey have whatever he can take in the direction of what he needs. 

***

Joe likes Andy's garage. 

He likes Ray's garage, too, but working with Ray still feels new, like he's a guest, albeit a welcome one. Andy's place is just … the baseline. And Joe can't forget how much he's missed it. Misses it. Whatever, who knows.

He's just grateful that Andy gives him work when he shows up. That Andy seems as happy as Joe feels when he shows up. 

Because it's been a week since the whole Patrick-and-Mikey-and-Leto … encounter … and Patrick might never emerge from Ray's garage again. And Joe needs something to do.

So here he is, changing out tires on a Civic, while Andy runs whatever errands need doing for the rest of the loft and Pete Wentz and two traumatized ex-addicts hopefully keep themselves all in one piece until he gets home.

The world's gruffest saint, Andy Hurley.

Joe goes to reach for a second tire when he catches movement, just out of the corner of his eye. He twists to see Mikey standing on the steps into the garage, looking startled, like he isn't quite sure how he got out here. Joe considers asking if he needs something, but, knowing what he knows of Mikey, the answer will probably be 'no', regardless of the truth.

'C'mere,' he says instead, when Mikey just gives him a strange, blank look. 'Hold this while I bolt it.'

He lets Mikey take the weight of the tire and reaches for his socket wrench. Mikey just keeps quiet, and looks all. Some kind of way.

Tense, is the word Joe would use. Tense and annoyed.

Joe wonders if Patrick's incessant concern that Mikey doesn't sleep enough is still something worth worrying about, even while he's effectively under house arrest. Add that to the list of things he can't ask. So he doesn't. Better tired and quiet out here than whatever else could be happening.

Just as he clicks the last bolt into place, Mikey's mouth wrinkles.

'Is this, like, actually an all-Guns-n-Roses playlist?' he asks over the music.

And like? Frankly, there are a lot of ways to indicate your overall disagreement with someone else's taste in music, but Mikey hits a very specific flavor of bitchy. If it weren't annoying, Joe would be impressed. He could almost give Patrick a run for his money.

'We actually have these things called albums?' he quips, straightening up. 'This, if you're wondering, is "Appetite for Destruction" -- and what crawled up your butt and died, anyway?'

Mikey … doesn't roll his eyes, but he does kind of make a face like he's somehow not going to be _bothered_ enough to roll his eyes. 

'Nothing, it's just loud.'

'You have a better suggestion?'

'I mean. I can give you an alphabetized list.' 

'Did you just come out here to bitch?'

Joe clips the words, and for whatever reason, it mollifies Mikey. Or diverts him, at least. He doesn't soften; he just glances away, and the skin around his eyes looks too thin. 

'Sorry,' he mumbles. 

_Joe_ rolls his eyes, now. Just once, it would be awesome if things were easy. 

'You can change it,' he says. 'But you have to help me with the other two tires.'

Mikey shrugs. He goes for Joe's phone on the workbench, flicks it to life, and there's a brief bleat of silence before Bowie kicks in on the speakers. Joe fights not to roll his eyes a second time.

'You have a text,' Mikey says, passing him the phone. 

Joe glances at the alerts screen, and -- sure enough. Gabe Saporta. _????srsly_

Joe just huffs and reaches to set the phone back down.

'You know Gabe?' Mikey asks. He looks a little perplexed, like he can't configure the social web in which this would be possible.

'I've been in the scene for a hot minute, dude. Get that other tire.'

Mikey does as he's told. 

They finish without incident and Joe gets up to wash his hands in the sink. Mikey just watches, still too stiff.

'You come around a lot,' he observes, while Joe's drying his hands.

Joe … does not know what to do with this guy. Mikey doesn't sound particularly accusatory, but the irritation's still there. Joe tries to have a little bit of sympathy. The dude's been locked up for a week straight, with everyone watching him like they're waiting for something to go wrong. It can't be fun -- but still. Temper tantrums aren't a good look.

'I like being here.'

'Patrick never comes.' 

Now he _does_ sound accusatory, and … okay.

Sure.

Joe can think of, conservatively, ten roads he'd rather go down, but apparently they're going down this one.

Why not.

'Patrick's … dealing with a few things. He likes to be alone for that.' 

'Awesome.'

'Do you want something?' Joe bristles.

Because why leave well enough alone?

Mikey's sitting on the steps now, with his legs pulled up to his chest, and it makes him look like a spindly, underslept stick figure. He shrugs. 

'It's whatever.'

Joe rolls his eyes again and goes back to the workbench. Andy left a list of other tasks. He's sure he can get through a few more before-- 

'Glad he can stop pretending to give a shit,' Mikey picks.

And just. Joe takes it back. Mikey absolutely _could_ give Patrick a run for his money, no almosts necessary.

'Sounds like you miss him,' he remarks, because seriously? Are they all in the eighth grade?

Mikey pulls such an epic _please, really?_ face that, again, it would be impressive if it weren't annoying. 'I mean. Avoiding his ex is pretty classy too.'

'Avoiding -- what? You mean Pete?' Joe low-grade anger gutters out. Mikey's mouth puckers. 'Dude, they're not … seriously?'

'Seriously what?'

'They're not exes.'

Mikey snorts. 'Okay.'

'Really?' Joe tries not to look like he's boggling, even though this is substantially more horrible than Patrick and Mikey just not getting along. 'No one explained this to you?'

'Well I didn't get the "previously on Days of Our Lives", no.'

Joe is just. So tired. Also he's going to kill Andy. 

'Okay, so. I think you might have been laboring under … the wrong impression about them.'

Mikey looks so thoroughly incredulous, and Joe so deeply doesn't want to be the one to have to explain this to him. It isn't really his to explain, just to start, but. Here they fucking are. And anyone with any clue can see that Mikey and Pete have … some type of something between them, and proprietary rights to an explanation or no, it's just shitty to let the dude carry on thinking that Pete and Patrick were star-crossed lovers at some point.

Yes, the moral compass of the intrepid heart. 

He sighs and rubs his hand over his face. 

'I'm not saying they … weren't a mess. It was a mess. And it was a shitty breakup, but it just. Wasn't a breakup between people who were dating,' he manages, but it's not enough. Mikey's still giving him a look like he's waiting for Joe to follow up with "just kidding" or something. 'Fuck, okay. Like. Pete was in accident a few years ago, is the point. And that's why Patrick had to teach you.'

'What?' Now Mikey just looks confused. 'But Pete's fine. We've.'

He halts, and Joe sucks his lips between his teeth and rocks up onto the balls of his feet. He doesn't particularly want to hear whatever Mikey might have meant to say. It'll just make everything harder.

'He's okay now,' Joe agrees. 'It was bad though … he. Got into the wreck. On purpose.'

The words land like someone dropped a steel ball bearing on concrete and, bitchy or no, Mikey obviously isn't stupid. He stares at Joe, his cheeks suddenly colorless. 

'Why?' he asks, but it's a whited-out, frightened kind of asking. The way a person asks when they're afraid they already know the answer. 

So yeah, telling the truth feels a little bit like Joe's sinking a knife between Mikey's ribs even though he's trying to conjure the gentlest version of this story.

'They used to be really good drivers,' he says. 'Patrick and Pete, I mean. Like, best precision drivers on the scene, good -- and attached at the hip if they were driving the same circuit.' He leans back against the car and shrugs. 'It's. There's a lot of minor shit that happens in the scene, okay? Like, streetcorner crime bullshit; racketeering and gambling and. Whatever. Pete and Patrick were good enough that people wanted them out of the game because they were fucking other people's shit up.' 

Mikey just keeps staring, and it's so painfully fucking obvious that before this moment, all he had was a clutch of mismatched fragments of something that didn't add up, and now everything's suddenly piecing itself together. Joe has to agree, it's not a particularly pretty picture.

'There was this big rally race,' he continues, because Mikey looks like he might not be able to talk. 'Like a few years ago. And … someone. One of Leto's crew, was trying to drive Patrick off course, and Pete just.' 

He waves his hand in a useless gesture that encompasses absolutely nothing but appears to sufficiently explain everything. Mikey's shoulders pull back, stiff. He looks heartbroken, of all things, and Joe … gets it, honestly. A guy landing himself in the hospital to protect someone else isn't _not_ a declaration of love. 

It probably would've been easier if they'd just fucked.

'But.' Mikey looks a little helpless. 'But Pete's okay, why can't he … '

'There were threats, I guess. Afterward. Pete -- can't drive anymore. Not in this scene.'

'So you and Patrick _left_?'

Joe wishes there were a way to explain that one without it sounding bad, but there really isn't. It was -- and still is -- a shitty situation. 

'Patrick and Pete had a fight.' They had a lot of fights. This one was just one bruise too many. 'And someone had to go with Patrick, afterwards.'

Mikey's still staring, like he's waiting for more -- except there isn't more to tell at this point. Anything Joe could add just feels like he's sharing someone else's secrets. And Mikey looks like he needs a Valium or a course of sleeping pills. 

Joe feels for him.

'It's shitty. But I guess now you know.'

Mikey opens his mouth, closes it, then looks away. He's got his arms wrapped around his bent up legs. Joe would love to know why no one else saw fit to explain any of this to Mikey, but he doesn't have any questions beyond that. Looking at this twiglike guy all bent up on the steps, he gets why Andy, secretly the world's biggest bleeding heart. wants to look out for him. 

'It is shitty,' Mikey agrees, his voice soft and sad. 

He squints out at the bright spill of the day beyond the open garage door and flexes his fingers, grasping and finding purchase on nothing.

Joe exhales through his nose. 'I have some more stuff to do out here. You can hang out if you want.'

Mikey nods, still watching the outside. He hasn't actually left the house -- or, more accurately, been allowed to leave the house -- in days, according to Andy. Joe gets through three more tasks off Andy's list before stepping neatly past Mikey to get into the house. He returns to the garage with water for both of them.

'Here. And--' He grabs his phone off the workbench. Three more texts from Gabe. He flits them away and passes the phone to Mikey. 'Put something else on.'

Bowie has long since given way to a random selection off of Spotify's "you might also enjoy" list. 

Mikey takes the phone. 'Thanks.'

The Misfits this time. Joe smiles a little bit, takes the phone when Mikey passes it back to him, and goes back to see what's left on Andy's list.

***

If Mikey has to say 'I'm fine' again, he's pretty sure he'll punch whoever's asking. He feels like a caged animal, clawing at the walls to mark the time except it's not the walls of the loft, it's the inside of his own skull. 

He lets his phone go to zero battery, because everyone who ever texts him is stuck in this loft with him, or at Ray's, which just means they come to visit the loft. The burner he keeps charged, though. Throwing meat to the wolf outside the door, maybe -- except the fucking thing just looms in his mind, and never goes off. He keeps expecting its short, sharp vibration against his hip, but every time he checks, it's just a phantom, not the real thing. 

If it went off he'd have to leave. Some crazed part of him wishes it would. At least then he'd get to have a fight before he got out the door. But it doesn't. Another night comes for him, dead silent.

He can't sleep. 

'Mikes, please,' Gerard mumbles into the pillow, and throws an arm over Mikey's shoulders as if pinning him down will help. Mikey slides his hand down to the side of the bed, where the light hopefully won't reach Gerard, and clicks the burner phone on, just to check it one more time. 

Nothing.

It's 3:47 am, and he's going to rip his hair out if he has to lay here for one more minute. He slides out from under Gerard's arm and shuffles down the stairs. 

Pete looks up from the couch, and just, shakes his head fondly, and moves to make space.

Mikey might be the worst person in the world. 

He sits, his knee bumping Pete's. 

Siska got out of the hospital today -- or that's what Vicky told Gabe who told Pete who told everyone else. Apparently it was mostly suspected spinal trauma and nothing that turned out to be serious, just something that needed watching for a few days. Mikey doesn't feel better about that, because it's not like he played for it to go that way. He just turned the wheel and didn't even pray. He just. 

He just turned the wheel. 

And everyone forgave him anyway.

Joe never said what happened to the other guy, the guy Pete wrecked. Maybe it doesn't matter.

At least Pete had a good reason. 

He hands Mikey an earbud, and clicks his phone onto something Mikey thinks he hasn't heard before, til the chorus comes on and he realises he has, just through the Trans Am's shitty speaker -- Take It Easy.

He must move or twitch or something, because Pete shifts against him, and he's so warm at Mikey's side. He nudges Mikey's knee with his own, and mouths 'want me to change it?'

Mikey shakes his head no. The chord progression dredges up a sunshine-edged memory; Patrick, almost-smiling, singing softly under his breath. It was a drive that went well, a series of turns that ran into each other like cream, smooth and flowing, a circuit he drove cleanly -- and the music was just nice, too, but sounds a heap better through Pete's good earbuds. 

They lean together and expand into each other's space, easy as breathing. Mikey's so grateful. He thought he might never get this again, not after their … it feels dumb to call it a kiss, it wasn't even really a kiss. And it feels dumber to make such a big deal out of it; they're adults, way past the age where kissing is the most dramatic thing you can do with a person. 

But here he is. 

And here's Pete, and everything's soft, and quiet, and comfortable.

Pete's breathing evens out. Mikey lets the music and the warmth flow around him and insulate him as best it can from the knowledge that if his life is going to hell, if he's going down, he'll probably take Pete down with him. 

He should never have learned Pete's name. He should have just gotten some and got gone, but whatever. Now he gets to think about Pete getting into a wreck to save Patrick's life. Joe's face is always expressive -- yesterday he may as well have painted a portrait of a bad memory. He didn't give any details but y'know what? Mikey's seen a wreck from the inside and more than a few, now, from the outside. He can fill in the blanks. 

Pete wouldn't have calculated it, either. Wouldn't have questioned what he was about to do, not if Patrick was the thing at stake. And sure, maybe Joe's telling him the truth and they were never like that, but it's still Patrick. Patrick, who breaks Pete's heart every time they're within a hundred feet of each other. 

If Patrick was in trouble Pete wouldn't even have thought at all, Mikey's pretty sure. 

Suddenly all of Pete's _alright, bitches_ , the ferocity of it, the heat, the taunting -- it all makes a lot more sense. The shorts, the preening, and the way the drivers treat him. The way they always ask for the grid girl's opinion on their ride even if they laugh at what he says and smack him on the ass. 

Pete's hand, splayed on the felt of the Bluebird's roof, his grin all joy the one time Mikey managed to take the car to speeding.

That whole thing with Frank and the quarter mile, that feels like a million years ago, and how pissed Andy was about it. It was just a drive on a suburban street -- Mikey hadn't gotten it then and even after it was over, he didn't get it, still. 

He gets it now.

Andy was afraid.

Mikey doesn't so much have to piece it together now as stack it up, click click click, all the bricks building on each other, while songs that Patrick played on the way home knot their way through his ears and Pete rests his head on Mikey's shoulder and nods in time. 

Mikey's gut cramps with sour pain.

He pulls the earbud out and tries to breathe. Some part of him wants to crawl upstairs and shake Andy awake and confess to the drug-running. 

He wants Andy to say: we can fix this. 

If he told Gerard, Gerard would say, 'it's okay,' and it's not, and Mikey knows that what Gerard would really mean is that he forgives Mikey. Always, even if it's stupid to forgive him. If he told Ray, Ray would say it's not his fault, and Mikey doesn't want to hear that either. But Andy. Mikey thinks Andy would just square his jaw and find a way to _make_ it be okay. 

The song changes to something louder, spilling crackly through the earbud lying in Mikey's lap, and he hurriedly jams it back into his ear before it can disturb someone upstairs. Pete shifts against him, surprised by the sudden movement. He's doe-eyed in the darkness.

And Mikey's an idiot.

Maybe Andy could forgive Pete for wrecking and Patrick for running, but they've all known each other for years, and in the clarity that comes only at four in the morning Mikey knows in his gut that he's nothing compared to all that. In context, he's a stranger, and Andy will be mad with him, and Pete, rightly, will be betrayed. 

And if they kick him out, what happens to Gerard? Unconditional fraternal love is great and all but living out of a car fucking sucks. 

Pete smiles up at Mikey. He's slipped so far down now, curled his legs back up on the couch cushions, that his shoulders are basically in Mikey's lap. The music shifts to something with a walking, hypnotic bassline and Pete drums it on Mikey's thigh. Muse, he realises. He knows this one. Hysteria. Awesome.

Mikey should get off the couch, at the very least, and stop leading Pete on. Or whatever he's doing. He should say no, at least.

Then again if he was any good at saying no he would have spit in Leto's face a long time ago.

He doesn't sleep, and neither does Pete.

When Andy emerges at the break of fucking dawn, he doesn't even give either one of them a weird look.

'Do we get a good breakfast, Hurley?' Pete asks.

His voice is all croaky, but happy, and Mikey feels stupid and guilty for that too.

Andy disappears into the kitchen. 

'All my breakfasts are good breakfasts, ingrate.'

Pete huffs, but doesn't move. In the kitchen, the sounds of a griddle, or something like it, crackle to life. 

Pete's phone goes off while Mikey's trying to summon the strength to pretend he's not catatonic when they actually have to get up. He startles, but Pete just fishes the phone out from between the couch cushions, his mouth scrunched in a frown.

Mikey catches the smell of something that might be pancakes.

Pete rolls onto his back to read the text. It means his head's rested squarely on Mikey's thigh. It also means Mikey has a clear view of the confusion that passes over his face for just a second, before he recovers something resembling drowsy nonchalance.

'Patrick says you need to turn your phone on, and he's coming over for waffles.' That explains the smell. 'And you're going for a drive? He also says if you could yell at Joe less that would be A+.' Pete turns big eyes on Mikey. 'You yelled at Joe? What did Joe do?'

A soft laugh startles its way out of Mikey's chest. 'Nothing, and no I didn't, I just told him GNR is shitty.'

'That's fighting talk, Mikeyway,' Pete says, sitting up and stretching. 'C'mon, let's make sure there actually are waffles for when Mr. Particular gets here.' He throws Mikey a smile over his shoulder as he pads away and god, Mikey's heart hurts for the day he doesn't get to see that any more. 

Andy's already dishing a waffle out of the iron when Mikey levers himself up off the couch and into the kitchen. There's also a pot full of oatmeal on the stove, so Mikey figures waffles were not originally in the plan -- but by the time Patrick rolls in (or rather, stomps in) plates have already gone around and Mikey can't say he's mad. Andy does make a damn good waffle. 

Patrick, charming as ever in the morning, accepts the plate Andy hands him and barely even grunts at him in return. 

'A thank you would be nice,' Andy says evenly. 

Patrick blinks, like he's catching up. 'Thanks,' he says, and it's not effusive but it isn't flat, either. 

He takes up a seat at the bar next to Pete without really saying anything to him. Pete passes him the syrup without being asked and Patrick takes it, and murmurs another thank you, but doesn't look up from his plate.

Jesus. 

There's 'not a morning person' and then there's whatever this is. Mikey finds himself having to straighten the plate he's holding because Andy's trying to dish another waffle onto it. Still, he can't keep from gaping at the way Pete watches Patrick, still. Big-eyed, like there's something about Patrick's presence that makes him … happy? Hopeful? 

It doesn't matter; Patrick looks like he doesn't notice and doesn't care.

It sets Mikey's teeth on edge again and dredges up the weird itch for a fight he's had for the last couple of days, because seriously? This kind of bullshit is what Mikey expects from ex-boyfriends, because Real Dating or whatever they call it is a toxic pile of shit and he's never seen it not go bad in the long run. This is exactly like that, and suddenly he doesn't care what Joe says. 

_He nearly killed himself for you and you can't even look him in the eye over breakfast,_ he wants to shout into Patrick's face. 

'It's gonna get cold if you leave it much longer,' Andy says gently, nudging Mikey to sit on the other side of the breakfast bar so he can get at the cutlery and eat like a civilised human.

It puts Mikey on Pete's other side, staggered to form a little isosceles triangle of awkward. Pete forgets Patrick for a second, smiles at Mikey, and pushes the bowl full of whipped vegan butter in his direction. 

_Now_ Patrick looks, blinking between the two of them. 

Mikey wants throw something in his face.

'I was thinking we could go for a drive,' Patrick sounds like he's slowly waking the rest of the way up. 'Y'know. Just to get out. Joe says you're going stir crazy.'

Mikey is so fucking sick of this, and you know what? While they're at it? Fuck Joe too. He'd rather die than be stuck in a car with Patrick.

'We're all going stir crazy,' says Andy, over the sound of the next waffle cooking. 

Patrick just gives him a weary look. Pete opens his mouth like he's going to say something, but then doesn't. Mikey could scream.

But Andy adds: 'The Bluebird's in the garage. Keys by the door. Don't stop anywhere.'

Patrick rolls his eyes. 'Yes, Mom.'

'Hurley, do we get to go for a drive later?' Pete asks, doing his best little kid impersonation. 

Andy reaches over Mikey to plop another waffle on Pete's plate. 'We get to go to the supermarket. I need help carrying shit.'

Patrick glances at Mikey and it's like there's some kind of invisible wall between him and Pete, like they can't quite handle looking at each other and also at Mikey at the same time. It's one or the other, but never both, and it's always there, Mikey realises. Sometimes it softens, a little -- he's seen them relax around each other -- but builds itself back up whenever they remember that he's in the room with them, and what the fuck does that even mean. 

_I could hear you, you know,_ he wants to snap. He could. He could hear them … whatever. Breathing to each other, in the dark, after his wreck. Rebuilding something, but only rebuilding it when he's not there. 

Fuck Patrick.

'Mikey?' Patrick raises an eyebrow. 'Are you okay to go?'

Mikey wonders what would happen if he said no. No, he's not ready, no, he doesn't want to go. Let Patrick figure it the fuck out. He's still a little soft, the way a person is when they don't want to be awake, but Mikey bets he could make him mad. No, he won't go, and Patrick can fucking cut the 'let me help you' bullshit in the meantime. 

Except it's probably not fair to put Pete and Andy through that. 

He kicks away from the counter without answering. Maybe Patrick needs the tables turned on him a little bit, maybe he needs to know what it's like to get trapped in a car with someone who won't stop saying things you don't want to hear. 

'I just have to grab a spare battery for my phone and say goodbye to Gee,' he says. 

Gerard, actually, is just coming out of the bathroom when Mikey starts towards the stairs.

'I'm not actually bedridden any more,' he says, sounding sleepy and reproachful. 'I'm just a lazy ass who likes his beauty sleep, that's all.' 

He doesn't say anything about why he didn't get enough sleep last night. 

Mikey loves him a lot and doesn't deserve him one bit, and sort of scrunches an arm around him in a careful hug, crawling out of his skin with jitters. 

He hooks his phone up to a battery pack and shoves it in his pocket, and doesn't turn it on, but feels a little less like the worst person now that he knows it's usable in an emergency. 

Out in the garage, Patrick doesn't even hint at a suggestion that Mikey should drive, so that's … nice. Mikey folds himself into the passenger's seat like a snail into its shell. If he could have a little trapdoor to shut after himself, too, that would be also nice, but he doesn't. 

Out into the bright day.

Patrick clicks the radio on. Axl Rose, in that awful fucking voice, croons about candles in the cold November rain and christ, Mikey hates every single fucking thing about the world. He reaches out and snaps the radio back off. Patrick huffs, and the silence lasts a full minute before he puts it back on again, but he does at least change the station. 

'Are we going somewhere?' Mikey snaps. 'Or is this just another lecture about how right you are?'

Patrick rolls his eyes. 'You need to cool it.'

'Whatever.'

The car glides down this street and that, and Mikey just stares out the window, hating the fact that Patrick actually _is_ right. He was losing his mind locked up in the loft, and it feels so much better just to be outside, to be moving.

The sun travels towards its zenith like a clockwork mechanism. Mikey can practically hear it clicking towards its crest in the sky, even though that's not how it works.It's just traveling in a smooth arc, shortening their shadows. The car hums along.

'Why do you even bother?' he sneers, after the songs have trickled from Golden Earring through The Animals and The Kinks all the way to something he's pretty sure is Elton John and he can't handle the oppressive lack of conversation anymore.

'With what?' Patrick asks evenly. 

Fuck him, he still won't fucking _bite_. 

'With--' _me_ '--this whole. Pity party thing. You don't have to be such a fucking martyr, you know.'

Patrick sighs. 'I think we should get back.' 

The radio plays golden oldie after golden oldie on the way back to Andy's, and Patrick doesn't sing along once. Mikey's going to crawl out of his own skin.

Why does he do this, why does he keep going out of his way for Mikey, when he clearly hates it so much? That's Mikey's question. Like. What is his fucking game? The taste of blood in the back of Mikey's throat makes him sure it's about Pete. That it's about Pete, and Leto, and that Patrick thinks Mikey's been handing himself off to Leto and--

Oh.

Because if he's been fucking Leto, he doesn't get to have Pete.

He looks at Patrick just watching the day through the windshield and he thinks _coward_.

The silence carries them forward.

Patrick pulls the car up in Andy's garage. The engine falls silent, for what little fucking good that does. He practically kicks his door open, a whole clutch of small, mean things biting in the back of his throat. 

As Patrick's shutting his door Mikey finally can't help himself, and the small, mean things cut loose.

'Y'know, if you want him back you're gonna have to actually fucking talk to him, Patrick.'

Patrick actually drops the Bluebird's keys. 

'What?' 

'You know what I'm talking about,' Mikey says, in the hardest voice he can muster, because fucking finally Patrick's giving him something, which just confirms it, doesn't it. Pete's the hot button. Pete's the sore spot. Pete's the point this whole thing pivots on. Sickish victory rips through Mikey's chest. 'Pete, Patrick. Your whole thing with him where you're a dick and he keeps coming back for more.'

'Okay -- what?' Patrick says, stepping around the hood of the car. 'I don't have a "thing with Pete".'

'Does he know that?'

'Fuck off.'

'No, you always want to have a talk, don't you? Let's talk. Let's talk about how you are with him, Patrick, because it's seriously fucked up.' 

Patrick bristles. 'I'm sorry, you want to talk about fucked up? I'm pretty sure I'm not the one kissing him in parking lots and playing hard to get.'

'So the whole pissed off silent treatment thing, that's just how you treat your friends?' 

'Jesus, you're such a hypocrite.'

Mikey's vision dims red on the periphery. 'And you're a coward.'

'I don't give a fuck what Pete does, Mikey.' Patrick's somehow very close, now, and radiating anger. 'I don't give a fuck what he does, or with who, and what fucking difference does it make to you when you already got--'

He catches himself, snaps his mouth shut like a trap. But it's too late. Mikey feels the blood rise in his face and wants more. 

'Got _what_?' he snarls. 'What have I got?' 

Patrick looks like he can't even form a sentence. Mikey's veins are running hot.

'It's still fucking there, even if you don't say it, _Trick_.' 

Patrick shoves him so hard, both hands to Mikey's chest, that he loses his breath when he claps back into the car. And there's nowhere to go, because Patrick has his hands all twisted up in Mikey's shirt and the second shove comes just as sharp, and the car shivers. 

Fuck. Yes.

Mikey shoves him back, fists tight in his hoodie, hard as he can and Patrick stumbles backwards, grabbing at Mikey for balance. Mikey twists a leg between Patrick's, trying to trip him. Patrick just pushes at him, throws his weight against him again and again, and Mikey feels it in his lungs and his ribs, a sick, thrilling connection. Finally, someone being fucking honest with him. Fighting him.

And he's going to fucking _win_. 

Patrick wrenches them sideways and Mikey overbalances them both and they land on the groaning hood of the Bluebird, their weight warbling a tortured sound out of the hood. Mikey gets the wind knocked out of him again. Patrick yanks them around til Mikey's flat on his back, and it's like they're going to fall, except Mikey gets one hand in Patrick's hair, vicious tight, knocking his hat all askew.

They slip a little. Patrick snarls, so fucking close to Mikey's face, and shoves one knee between Mikey's thighs, panting, his eyes burning, his face flushed -- and Mikey _wants him_.

He yanks Patrick close by the hair, sits up as much as he can, bites his mouth once, twice, hungry and hard as he can manage, because yeah, yes. This, he knows. _This_ is what he's good at.

Patrick's hand finds his hair fast as lightning, twisting so hard Mikey's scalp burns. He can't move his head at all, can't slip away, not with how Patrick's driving his knee up, pushing Mikey higher and higher on the hood. Wrenching hair to hold Mikey still, to kiss back, again and again, teeth clipping and punishing, like this is what Mikey fucking deserves-- 

'Shit--'

For a second Mikey thinks he imagined it but no, it's real. The word whipcracks in the air, and Patrick startles as hard as Mikey, and they nearly fall off the hood for an entirely different reason.

Pete just stands on the steps into the garage, staring.

Mikey's mouth tastes of blood. Patrick pulls away enough to look around and Mikey thinks he might actually have split Patrick's lip, but that's not the important thing. The important thing is that Pete's _right here_ , gaping at them -- and then he spins around on his heel and disappears back through the door.

'Fuck,' says Mikey, after a breathless beat. 

Patrick's hands are still on his hip and in his hair. 

And then all the tension in Patrick comes undone, but there's no relief in it. Just a cable, suddenly cut and a heart deflating, and Mikey wants to grab at him again. To keep him here, because-- 

Because?

'I should go after him,' Patrick breathes. 

His bottom lip swells red. Mikey tries to take a deep breath and fails, losing it mostly to incredulity.

'Really?' 

He lets his hands slip away from Patrick's shirt and hair, trying to picture how that encounter would go. Patrick chasing Pete off to … wherever. Pete, looking at Patrick the way he always looks at Patrick, except worse. Mikey's chest aches, now, where before he was just burning up with a hot hunger. Patrick can't go, he can't go to Pete. Not like this, not when he and Pete can't even smile all the way at each other. 

'Yes, really,' Patrick answers, softly.

He moves to stand properly. Even though his mouth looks like it's stained scarlet, his cheeks are pallid, and Mikey feels weird without his weight. His hat, aggressively dislodged in their tussle, lies overturned on the floor. 

'Wait--' Mikey starts, and Patrick glances at him. He doesn't bristle though. He doesn't do anything except look at Mikey, his eyes gone all big the way Pete's do, sometimes, except Mikey doesn't know what it means when it's Patrick. 'Let me talk to him? I'll … ' He doesn't know what he'll do, really, but that feels almost incidental. 'Just let me. I'll bring him back.'

Bring him back, make it better. _We'll make it better, both of us._

Pete was so happy against him, just a few hours ago. 

'I … ' 

Patrick hesitates, glancing at the door.

'Patrick.' Mikey's fingers itch, not holding anything. 'I promise.'

It's not quite the right thing, it's not the thing he _means_ \-- but he's never been very good with words. A muscle in Patrick's jaw, the one Mikey's somehow so familiar with, tics. He's so close, still. 

Patrick rolls his shoulders. 'Okay,' he cedes. 'I. Okay.'

He doesn't sound angry. He sounds far away. But he moves, and suddenly he's not close to Mikey at all; now Mikey has room to slip off the car. The back of Mikey's scalp still hurts where Patrick yanked his hair. 

His shoes make flat sounds on the floor as he crosses to the steps. Patrick doesn't say anything, doesn't move, doesn't follow him.

***

Pete's phone goes off twice, and he lets it ring its way to voicemail both times. 

He isn't entirely sure where he's walking, he just knows he has to _walk_. And keep walking. Keep walking until something happens, even if he isn't sure what that "something" is either. Getting angry, maybe, because that would make sense, right? That should definitely happen. A normal person would definitely be angry.

Except it's not like he owns Mikey, or something, and it's not like he and Patrick ever--

Crazy. That's the word for how he feels. In-fucking-sane. Because there must be some wire crossed in his head, somewhere, one that's preventing him from adding all this up. "All this," if he were going to organize it into a list, like the maniac he apparently is, being: 

The chapped feel of Mikey's mouth brushing his. 

Patrick, resting a hand against the back of his neck.

Patrick, coaxing him to sleep and not staying, no matter how bad Pete wanted him to. 

Mikey, swallowing too many secrets and curling up against Pete because Pete never asked.

And the weird, unbridgeable chasm of silence that Mikey and Patrick always seem to have between them, except for the fact that Patrick felt compelled to protect Mikey from Leto.

And then made out with him on the hood of a car, like. 

That's kind of a big deal, right?

Probably. It probably is, considering that all Pete could do was stand there and watch them chase each other like they were starving. Killing the game, Wentz.

'Pete!'

He turns before he can catch himself and Mikey's right there, like, too close to get away from. His hair's all a mess, and he looks just generally disheveled. Pete opens his mouth, then closes it; he can't get his fucking thoughts in order, never mind string a full-blown sentence together.

'Pete.' Mikey's voice is all tangled and strained, and, just. 

Jesus Christ he's so _fucking_ pretty. 

He opened his mouth for Patrick, fought Patrick for whatever kiss it was that he was getting or taking, and Patrick was pretty too, biting back, and Pete's confident that, no matter what else, he's going to remember that crystal fucking clear picture forever, until the day he actually dies, and then probably after.

Maybe this is karma for being too fucking selfish, or something.

'Pete, please,' Mikey breathes, like he's sincerely afraid he broke something past the point of fixing, but no. 

No that isn't it at all. 

It would be absolutely phenomenal if Pete could pull it together enough to actually answer him. Instead, Mikey reaches, hesitantly, and cups Pete's elbow and appears to take it as a good sign that Pete doesn't flinch away.

'Can we go back?' Mikey asks.

No words, still. Maybe his feet have taken root in the concrete. Maybe he'll never be able to talk again. That's probably a good thing, actually, since most of what he _can_ put together in his head amounts to: what was it like? What did he taste like? Where's my kiss, while we're at it? 

As an aside: he likes to imagine another universe where he's mostly the same, but less self-involved. 

'C'mon.' Mikey's fingers feather over the curve of his elbow. 'Just. Let's go home.'

Pete's in the middle of having the ludicrous thought that he doesn't even know how Mikey found him when his brain finally clicks into place.

'Where's Patrick?'

'I … at the loft? Maybe.' 

He should say _okay_. _Okay_ and maybe also _I don't mind; I don't care_. 

If he says it, he might actually mean it, and if he actually means it, it won't hurt later, or it won't have happened to him, and he can just go on doing the right thing, whatever that is. Feeling warm and happy in Mikey's company, probably; not burning whatever's left of the bridge between him and Patrick. 

He can _feel_ his brain clipping two steps ahead of itself. Patrick's still holding Mikey down, biting his lips red. 

Awesome.

He steps away from Mikey's gentle touch and starts walking back in the direction of the loft without saying whatever stupid thing he can't even formulate all the way. Mikey just hovers by his side, for reasons that remain opaque to Pete. It kind of helps? Or it helps right up until they get to the loft's door, and then Pete doesn't know what to do. It's one thing to just be him and Mikey, out in the sunshine; it's a whole other thing to be around people when he has the weird feeling that he's not anchored to any emotion in particular.

'C'mon,' says Mikey softly, and he finds Pete's elbow again, tugs him towards the threshold, pushing the door open. He must have left it unlocked when he chased after Pete. 

Inside it smells of coffee -- a rich, warm scent in a cool, shaded place. Pete feels his body relax a little, because this is home. It's home, and he can think, and … and somehow that's when the weight of it all lands on Pete. This is home, this is real, and Mikey's still touching him. And Patrick's … somewhere. 

And he, Pete, still isn't _mad_ , he just feels heavy, and tired.

'I'm going to lay down.'

It's barely late afternoon, but Mikey doesn't stop him. He just hesitates, radiating uncertainty. Pete wants to crawl into bed and wake up to a morning where things magically got better.

That would be nice.

Without waiting for anything else, he climbs the stairs heavily, like he's got cement overshoes on, and throws himself onto Andy's bed, where it's firm and smells of Andy and stability and … fuck, kale, probably, who even knows. Home, in another manifestation. 

He's literally pulling the blankets over his head when the mattress shifts beside him. 'I'm sleeping, Hurley,' he mumbles, because it's politer than 'fuck off, Hurley,' when Andy hasn't even done anything to him. 

'I'm not Hurley,' says Gerard, and Pete supposes he knew that. 

He knows Andy's balance and gait well enough to recognize him from a mile away without even seeing him. Right now, the mattress tips in a way that it wouldn't if Andy were here. 

So, great. 

Pete doesn't want to talk to Gerard either, he doesn't want to talk to anyone. Maybe he wants to talk to Patrick, his traitor brain suggests, or maybe he just wants to hear Patrick's voice or something, like that might help him sort his confusion out. Or maybe he just wants to die. 

That's probably it. 

Gerard doesn't say anything else for a minute or two, but Pete knows what's probably coming. He ran out of here like all the hounds of hell were on his tail, he knows he did because that's how he felt, and Mikey must have chased him pretty quick for how fast he caught up, and Mikey looked … wrecked and with his shirt stretched. 

And Gerard has eyes, he probably took a few educated fucking guesses. 

Pete wills the mattress to eat him, and wills Gerard not to say anything in equal measure. Maybe he'll wake up in another dimension where he was just having a super weird sex dream, and none of it was real. 

Gerard lets out a soft breath and says, 'I'm sorry, for -- I don't know. How shitty things have been lately. You only ever helped us out and I just. I know things haven't been great for you. I know you and Mikey … ' he sighs. 'I know it's complicated. And I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry Mikey makes things that way.'

Pete resists the urge to laugh and the urge to scream both. 

'It's … whatever,' he mumbles, wondering if he can smother himself in Andy's pillow. 'They can do what they like.' 

He doesn't know if Gerard knows, really, what happened but whatever, and context is for the weak.

Either way, Gerard doesn't miss a beat. 

'That's only true if no one's getting hurt.' 

And honestly? Pete would rather get choked to death than, like, live through this conversation. 

He's not the boss of Patrick and Mikey, and when all's said and done it's only his heart that's hurting, and his heart's kind of useless, it's been broken forever. Ever since …. Since ever, really, and it's not like they could fix that. It's not like he has a right to ask them to give a damn about his heart.

He just wants Patrick. Patrick could always make things like this better without lying to him.

But Patrick's part of the reason he's feeling all tangled up, and he can't go to Mikey either, and he just inexplicably wants them both anyway.

Instead he has Gerard sitting on the edge of the bed, sort of awkwardly patting him on the shoulder. 

Patrick's mouth was so, so red. It looked like it hurt. Mikey looked like he'd been in a pit, chewed up and spit out. And Pete. Just. Twitches and tweaks deep inside himself and wishes he'd been stupid enough to step further in instead of running the fuck away. 

_Where's my kiss?_ is a fucking weird flavour of jealousy but Pete doesn't know what else this feeling can be. 

'It's not your fault,' says Gerard after a long moment of Pete lightly exploring the option of asphyxiation with one of Hurley's spartan pillows. 

And again, Pete could cheerfully die maybe fifteen times over. 

'I know,' he mumbles, because he's somehow not self-obsessed enough to think he could have driven them into each other's arms or whateverthefuck romance novel cliche. That isn't even the problem, really. It's just. 'I'm just stupid.' 

That definitely _is_ part of the problem. 

Gerard sighs and picks at Andy's bedspread. 'I think. Mikey has a hard time with stuff like this.' Like most other humans, Pete assumes. 'You're not stupid.'

'Can you just … leave me alone?' 

He doesn't mean it in a whiny way, or a mean one, just that he would like to be entirely free of company. It's the middle of the day and he did sort of sleep last night but fuck, he could sleep for a week right now. He wants to. Maybe he could go into hibernation, a sad little bear. Faking it. 

'Please be careful with Mikey,' Gerard says in a low, rushed voice. 'I guess you probably don't feel like he deserves it right now --' and Pete stiffens, because what the fuck-- 'but please. He's. Just take care, he's not a fucking android like he pretends to be, okay?'

Pete twists over to look at Gerard for real. 

'I know he's not.' 

But it sounds lame next to what he wants to say, which is _of course I'll be careful_ , even though that's a stupid thing to promise when he isn't sure if he can keep it, and let's all just look at Pete's track record here. How careful he's been with people in the past. Let's just say Pete's personally paved a lot of miles on the road to hell.

Gerard looks down at his fingernails. 'And … Patrick, too.'

Pete blinks. 'Patrick doesn't need me to be careful with him.' 

Patrick, in fact, made it staggeringly clear what he thought of Pete's attempts to look out for his welfare. Look where that ended up. 

Gerard just looks at him, flat and serious. 

'No. Him and -- he needs to be careful with Mikey too, okay?'

_Feel free to talk to Patrick, then_ burns on the back of Pete's tongue, but he can't say it. Gerard is just looking at him like … hurt and drawn and sincere in that way that makes Pete uncomfortable.

'I -- I don't think either of us wants to hurt him.'

That's certainly one way of putting it. 

It _looked_ like they were trying to hurt each other, both of them pressed up so tight, all body to body. It looked like that, and something in him screamed, in red hot treble, that if he stayed quiet he might get to see more. 

But then he didn't, and they stopped, and so. Sure. Probably no one wants Mikey to get hurt. 

Gerard just nods. He gets up, pushing up with his good hand and with much better balance than even a week ago, so it seems like the PT is doing him some good, and makes his way downstairs, where there's a fresh wave of coffee smell happening. 

There's the unmistakable sound of the garage roller door opening, distant, and then the soft barely-there sound of someone in the garage having turned on the radio. It's slow and walking, lilting almost; not metal, not even rock. Familiar though, like from a million years ago, and Pete's sort of humming into Andy's pillow, an unrealised twine of tension unwinding from his spine because that? That's Patrick's kind of music, and that means he's still here, he hasn't bailed. He hasn't left. 

That's good. When Patrick was gone, when he _left_ , it happened so fast that it was easy to push the pain down and convince himself that, if it hurt, it didn't really matter. It was over, whatever they were, and there was nothing left to salvage from the wreckage. Post mortem can't raise the dead. 

Pete doesn't know if he could go through that again and not just dry up inside.

But the soft sounds from the garage carry into the loft, and Pete just lays face down against Andy's pillow, and lets the beat carry him, and thinks _now, now I'm going to feel like shit_ , but … he just feels like something doesn't fit, that's all. Confusion and a weird, off-axis sadness, countered by the fact that they both stayed. 

Mikey came for him and Patrick didn't leave.

Pete's pretty sure he doesn't fall asleep, but he fuzzes out, his eyes aching, and when he fuzzes back in, long, orange sunshine splashes through the high windows and when he blinks again it's darker, and he can hear the noises of people settling in for the evening, can see the glow of the downstairs lights winking on, ekeing over the stair railing. He rolls over to block it from his sight.

The soft music has stopped, he realises hazily and a little sadly. 

More footsteps come up the stairs, and it's not Andy, Pete knows it's not Andy. It's someone else, and his heart presses out more pain, and still no jealousy. 

The mattress dips again, but barely this time, only the very edge. 

'I know you're not asleep,' Patrick whispers. 'But … I guess this might be less awkward if you pretend you are.'

Pete rolls over and blinks at him. The light filters up from somewhere downstairs, catches on the fringes of Patrick's hair, where it feathers out from under his hat, makes it so that he can see the lit-up trace, faintly, of Patrick's face in three-quarter profile, standing out against the dark. 

Pete wants something so very badly, but he doesn't know what it is.

'I'm sorry,' says Patrick, like the words are weights and he's glad to put them down. 'I … I never meant for that to happen, and I know you were -- are -- I mean. I just. I'm not trying to get in your way, or anything. It was just a stupid thing that happened. I don't know.'

Patrick ducks his head. Pete would bet pink slips he's biting his bottom lip red all over again. Pete wants to sit up and … something. Something. He wishes Mikey were here.

'It won't happen again,' Patrick breathes. 'Please. Forgive me?'

And still, Pete doesn't know what to say, because that's not what he wanted. He didn't want an apology, he doesn't want Patrick to have to ask for anything. He just wants him to stay. 

He reaches out and touches Patrick's wrist where he's got his hand clenched in the bedspread.

Patrick startles and looks at him. It's too dark to really see his face, but Pete can fill it in anyway.

'It's okay,' he says, because … because it has to be if he wants them to get better from here. 

Patrick is quiet for such a long time. Finally: 

'Thank you.'

He sounds so relieved and so grateful that Pete's pretty sure Patrick thinks his apology is accepted. He doesn't know how to tell him that there doesn't need to be an apology at all, that Pete just wants Patrick to lie down and share this space with him. He wants to fill up the awkward darkness with slow breathing, he wants that so bad it aches. That's what will fix them -- not apologies, not explanations or … or guilt. Just this. Closeness, and time. 

He doesn't hold very tightly to Patrick's wrist, but he doesn't let go either -- not until Patrick starts to move. To get up and go somewhere that isn't here. Pete's fingers slip over his tendons, strung tight between fine skin and long bones, and he should probably let go but he just. Doesn't. Want to.

'Pete?'

It's stupid that Pete can't manage at least a 'yeah' but they're already having some kind of silent half-conversation in the mostly-dark, so maybe things have gone beyond stupid. Either way, Patrick just sighs again, and Pete can't decide if he should pull away or tighten his fingers. 

'You deserve something good.' Patrick sounds very soft and very sincere, in a way Pete hasn't heard in years. 'Him or -- something. You really do.' 

He makes the decision for both of them, moving out of Pete's reach. Pete's fingertips lose purchase, and Patrick's warmth disappears. The mattress moves again, up, unweighted all of a sudden. 

'I'll see you tomorrow,' Patrick breathes.

And then he's gone, maybe because Pete couldn't think of anything to say. 

Pete, listening to him descend the stairs, feels like an engine with a misfire, lurching off-axis in some way that isn't definitively bad but just isn't right. Too many uneven beats later, he thinks: _you're_ the good something, just as much as Mikey. 

But it's dark, and it's late, and he doesn't know what he means by that anyway.

Gerard reemerges at some point, but doesn't say anything, and Pete keeps on pretending to be asleep. He listens to voices murmur downstairs, but the front door never opens or closes. Eventually, Andy's footsteps announce his arrival, creaking up the stairs.

He doesn't say anything either.

He just folds into the bed next to Pete and hugs him and doesn't let him go.

***

The afternoon goes more or less as expected. First, Mikey gets to watch Gerard go up to the loft to … something. Talk to Pete, he guesses, but he doesn't really know why. Probably just because Gerard is a better person than Mikey; he wants to help people not hurt. 

So that's awesome.

Mikey just curls up on the couch. He can't go up to the loft, that's for fucking sure, and he thinks it might kill Gerard if he just disappears back out the door again. And he can't go back into the garage. 

Obviously.

He listens to Andy moving around out there, with Patrick. He listens to the soft sounds of Gerard's voice. Maybe he could text Ray to rescue him, except then he'd be at Ray's, and at some point Patrick would come back, and. 

Mikey just wishes he could pretend to be sorry.

Eventually, Andy reemerges. Eventually Gerard comes back downstairs. Neither one of them push on him, though, they just disappear into the kitchen, and Mikey chews his lip in time to the lilt of their conversation.

Patrick's music -- whatever bullshit he likes from the first century BC -- thrums gold washes through the wall partitioning the sitting room from the garage. The light grows longer and redder. Mikey's busy wondering if there's a limit to how long he can sit here before he loses his mind when Gerard appears. Mikey looks away from him.

'Mikes.'

'I don't want to talk about it.'

'Mikey.'

'I don't.'

Gerard sighs. He rests his hand on Mikey's shoulder and it's warm, and gentle, and patient, and Mikey hates himself. 

'You're gonna have to, Mikes.'

Mikey's mouth twists. Whatever it is that he isn't saying? He'll let it kill him first, so. Thanks, Gee.

But Gerard doesn't pull away. He never does. All he's ever done is love Mikey, without reservation, and at this point Mikey's pretty confident that he really shouldn't. He moves a little closer and his hand slips til he's brushing his knuckles at the back of Mikey's neck, just like he used to do when they were kids. Mikey wants to hug him and tell him to go away all at once.

'I'm not sorry,' is what he ends up saying.

Gerard just sighs. 'Maybe you should tell them that.' The couch creaks when he gets to his feet. 'Andy has dinner in the kitchen, if you're hungry.'

Mikey just shrugs.

He's all alone again, in the eddie between Patrick's music and the soft kitchen conversation. 

It's full dark when the music finally dies. Mikey hears Patrick come in from the garage, but doesn't look. He doesn't need to, really. Patrick just walks past him and goes for the kitchen. Mikey thinks he hears Pete's name said more than once.

Maybe if he gets up and leaves right now, no one will notice. Or maybe Patrick would notice. Since nothing else gets his fucking attention. Mikey dragged Pete back here and then Patrick just hid. Or whatever. He only ever bothers to do anything when he thinks Mikey's going to do something stupid.

As if to prove the point, Patrick reemerges from the kitchen and goes for the stairs, and Mikey's heart sinks a little more. Now he has to sit here and listen to _Patrick_ murmur things to Pete and it's just. 

Fanfuckingtastic.

This isn't what he wanted. 

His stomach sours, because, on that subject, he's not entirely sure what he _did_ want, but he knows he didn't want Pete to get hurt. He wanted Pete to come back and he wanted to kiss Pete to make it better. He'd also like it if Patrick could get a fucking clue and realize that even if Mikey wanted to get between him and Pete, he couldn't. Everyone else can probably see that, Mikey doesn't know why Patrick doesn't get it. He doesn't know why Patrick doesn't get that he's not even trying to make Pete pick or whatever stupid thing.

He just wants Pete to be happy.

If Patrick could grow a pair and fucking look Mikey in the eye, maybe Mikey could tell him that.

He listens to Andy and Gerard, idling in the kitchen (talking cars now, because Gerard actually likes cars), and hates his entire life. Maybe if he just huddles on the couch and hides under the blankets that Pete usually sleeps with, everyone else will just go to bed and not bother him. 

For a minute, it seems like he might get his wish. Patrick descends the stairs again and, true to form, goes back to the kitchen. Gerard eventually materializes to go up to bed. He doesn't have to glance at Mikey for Mikey to know he's still worried, so Mikey just pulls the blankets up off the floor and wraps them around himself, like that might shield him from feeling guilty. He even kind of convinces himself that he might be able to fall asleep like this -- and then Andy and Patrick both emerge from the kitchen. And Andy goes to the garage.

Leaving Patrick.

Mikey's whole face burns, but he can't not look. If Patrick's going to yell, or … whatever. Get angry. At least he can get it over with quickly, with Mikey looking at him. But Patrick doesn't look angry. He looks the way he looked in the garage. Drawn.

'Can we talk?'

_Can we go get Pete?_ snaps in Mikey's head. He just nods.

Patrick sits on the other end of the couch, keeping a respectable amount of distance between them. A definite no-kissing distance. Like Mikey might misconstrue this situation otherwise. He fights not to roll his eyes and also not to fold further into himself until he's burrowed completely in the blankets.

'So,' Patrick leads. 'We … can't do that again.'

Thank you, Patrick. 'Wasn't planning on it.'

He clips the words, but Patrick doesn't flinch or snap back. Mikey's stomach aches with aggravation.

'I … he matters to me, Mikey,' Patrick carries on, softly. 'And I think he matters to you.'

It's vague and amorphous enough a summary that Mikey can't deny it. He doesn't want to, but now he also can't. 

'He matters,' he cedes, and fights back a sneer. 

Patrick doesn't say anything, though. He just watches Mikey, and it makes Mikey itch. Maybe he wants Mikey to say sorry. That seems like a logical conclusion to draw in this moment.

Except he isn't sorry. 

Or, he's sorry for the consequences, he's sorry Pete's hurting, but he's really not sorry for what happened. He wasn't lying to Gerard when he said that. And that definitely can't be what Patrick wants to hear.

'I'll say sorry to Pete,' he manages. At least that part's mostly true.

'Mikey.'

Mikey glares before he can stop himself. 'What?'

He snaps the question, but he doesn't know what else he can do. He can't take any of this back and he doesn't particularly want to. Patrick just shakes his head, looking tired. 

'I don't know,' he sighs. 'I just … ' Mikey tenses, but Patrick just rubs his eyes. 'I'm sorry. To you too.'

He sounds so gentle when he says it, but he may as well have hit Mikey. He doesn't know what it means, that Patrick thinks he's worth an apology, especially next to Pete. He doesn't even know what Patrick's sorry for, and he's afraid to ask, and he's so angry about all of it. 

'You don't have to be,' he mumbles, after a weird, uncomfortable lull of silence. 'I started it.'

Let Patrick fucking figure out why he won't return the apology.

It feels like they sit there for a very long time, not talking. Mikey hears Andy moving around in the garage. He feels anxious over something, but he can't quite figure out what, so he decides it's just the sitting-here-and-not-saying-anything thing that's making his stomach twist over itself. 

That and how mad he is at Patrick for being so fucking oblivious.

Then Patrick speaks again, very softly: 'You matter too, Mikey.'

And Mikey sucks in a short, soft breath, because it feels like something in his chest is breaking open.

He should say something back, he supposes, but he can't. His voice is stuck somewhere behind his sternum. _We'll make it better, both of us._ He wants so much for that to be true. He wants to see Pete's face if it could be true; he wants to see Patrick's. He wants to see them smile at each other, really, for real. He just. Wants.

And it hurts.

He chews his bottom lip.

'Just. Stay, okay? I … won't do it again. But stay?'

Patrick is quiet for such a long time, that Mikey bristles, ready to be angry so it won't hurt when he says no. 

Instead: 'Okay. Lemme ask Hurley for an extra pillow.'

***

Andy only gives Patrick one sideways look when he asks for the pillow and a comforter. Patrick's cheeks burn, but at least they don't have an argument. Or a something else. They already had it out in the garage after Pete ran off, and Patrick's too tired to do it again, too tired to explain.

He doesn't even know what he would explain, if he could, and he definitely can't.

Mikey's mostly buried under his blankets by the time Patrick drops to the sitting room floor, two pillows and a comforter in his possession. It's definitively not comfortable but it's not like he can do anything else. He doesn't want it to come remotely close to looking like he and Mikey might have thought about doing … something. And, really, he doesn't want to actually ask anything of Mikey. 

He's already taken more than enough.

So here he is, on the floor, listening to Mikey twist this way and that in his blankets until his breathing finally evens out. Patrick's pretty sure he has his own adrenaline crash waiting for him -- or that it's actually happening now; his neck aches and his eyes burn -- but sleep, it seems, isn't yet in the cards. 

He twists onto his back to stare up at the ceiling. The drifting photonic remnants of the light pollution sneak their way in through the high windows and limn the bare beams all the way up there, and the stairs, and the only-just crooked edges of Andy's sparsely-hung posters, too. Closer, they let him see the way Mikey's face softens in sleep. The topography of his cheekbone, silvered; the gentle lift and swell of his ribcage. 

It's good that he's sleeping. One tiny taut cable in Patrick, somewhere deep in the unknowable sheetbend of his soul, untwists. Neither Mikey nor Pete ever sleeps enough and it rubs him raw. One more thing he can't do a goddamn thing about except … watch, and chew himself to bits, apparently. 

He should have hit Leto in that fucking lot. He should have hit him and hit him until there was blood everywhere, Leto's or his own, or both. 

He wishes he didn't care so much. 

Or. He wishes he could just do what Andy and Joe are always telling him to do, and chill, but he doesn't know how. The only thing that will get him distance is, well. Distance. And he doesn't want to -- he _can't_ \-- leave again, even for a weekend, just to get his head straight. He doesn't want to see the soft, halting reparations he and Pete are making burn up. And he doesn't want to keep fighting with Mikey, god, even though it keeps happening. He wants Mikey to feel safe here. To relax more than just in sleep, and be part of the rhythm of this place. He could, Patrick thinks. Mikey and Gerard -- they're meant to be here, they fit. 

This … this life Patrick walked back into, he thought it would be like unpausing something he'd stopped. But it wasn't, it isn't -- he and Joe came back to something that had been living and growing even while they were away, and yeah, maybe sometimes it clips at Patrick wrong because it's not how it was, but y'know fucking what? It didn't work the way it was. It's different now and part of that is Mikey. It wouldn't make sense without Mikey.

Mikey rolls over onto his side. Patrick has an odd perspective on him, from the floor beside the sofa. His fringe straggles in his eyes, his head tilts perilously near the edge of the cushions, and one arm dangles gracelessly off the cushions, softly curved fingers nearly brushing the floor. 

He's as beautiful as Pete in his way. Which is not an excuse for what Patrick did. Nothing really excuses making out with a guy that's been getting cornered into sex for who knows however long. 

Patrick exhales, trying to relieve the tight, sick feeling in his gut. 

But it's hard to not reach for that drooping hand. He clamps his own hands under his armpits and tries to persuade himself that he'll have more plausible deniability, at the very least, if he also rolls onto his side and isn't staring up at Mikey like some creepy stalker. It's just that … this? Mikey unhurt and breathing evenly, sleeping soundly? That's the thing Patrick wants. He wants that for Mikey tonight and tomorrow and every night after. 

He listens to Mikey sleep. 

Pete -- not Pete now upstairs, Pete a million years ago in a hospital bed -- slept the same way; infrequent and hard, weighed down to the bed and dead to the world, all untwitching eyes and slow drool, and Patrick watched him sleep, amidst all the beeping machines and the thunderous noise of the weather outside the hospital walls, until he couldn't anymore, and he walked out.

He couldn't deal with the way it hurt, or the way he knew it would hurt, the next time and the next time and the next time Pete chose to throw himself onto the tarmac and skid sparks to save Patrick's hide. The way every machine-made beep preceded a possible absence of the next beep. Patrick couldn't take the waiting, or the suspense. Couldn't keep giving Pete probable cause. Couldn't keep watching Leto try to hurt the people he loved. Loves.

Mikey called him a coward earlier. He's probably right.

Patrick rolls over, but towards the sofa, not away. He can't see Mikey's delicate profile anymore, now he just has the upholstery to contend with, too close to focus, and Mikey's twitching fingers, up close. The fingers that were hooked up under Patrick's shirt earlier, and Patrick gets a flush of something, warm from the tips of his ears to low in his belly, and he thinks about Pete upstairs in a real bed.

He would have let Patrick stay. Patrick could sense him fighting back the request, even in the dark. Even with two years of silence between them, Patrick can read him. 

Patrick thinks he would have gotten into that bed if he could have taken Mikey with him. If that weren't the wishful thinking icing on an already nonexistent cake. If he could have … drawn Mikey up the stairs with him, gently by the wrist, and pulled him til they could crawl into Andy's bed, next to Pete. Maybe in the insane universe in which that were a viable option, Pete wouldn't even wake, would just murmur and roll over to make space, soft and vulnerable and trusting, and then Patrick could have maybe actually gotten some rest, knowing they were both, for the moment, okay. Maybe it wouldn't feel so much like taking advantage of the two of them, or taking advantage of how they were hurting.

Mikey wakes -- some dream wakes him -- with a little startle. Patrick looks up at him before he can stop himself, and Mikey's blinking this fuzzed out, sleepy look, and oh, Patrick wants to see that underneath covers, wrapped up and cherished. Pete looks just the same way sometimes, Patrick remembers it from nights that got so late they'd turned into early mornings. 

They match, Patrick thinks. 

He should stop getting in their way. He should get up. Instead, he just lets the unfinished image of dark warmth, Pete's soft breathing and Mikey's sleepy expression, play on endless loop in the cutting room of his mind, and watches Mikey settle back into his doze. 

He wants … something. There's something there he wants, and he doesn't know what, except that he wants it in an ineffable, permanent sense.

It's not a train of thought he can follow, it doesn't have an ending he can find, and his gut twists again. It's not that he's … he's not entertaining any fantasies or whatever about Mikey, or Pete, any what-ifs or plans to try and get their attention, or anything. He's trying to make up with Pete, that's all. He's trying to rebuild some tiny shade of what they had, and fix his life here. All that's too important, and everything around them is too volatile, for this kind of stupid lizard-brain distraction. 

And he can't ask any more of Mikey. Not that he would. But he can't, knowing that Leto is or has been … whatever. Harvesting something from him, using him; whatever Mikey won't say out loud.

_What do you think he wanted?_ Mikey snaps, in memory. Patrick has a few fucking ideas, all of them ending in the same ugly place. He'd be a special kind of sick to use Mikey that same way when he already knows that Mikey's hurting.

He closes his eyes.

Eventually his brain slumps into something that feels like a fugue state, at least. He rouses again when he hears Andy walking to the kitchen and -- ugh. He really should go, because. Well. 

He doesn't know why he should, but here he is. 

Mikey's still asleep despite the clinking in the kitchen, and with the rising of the sun comes Patrick's conscience, back from the dead. He and Mikey need some goddamn breathing room, and Pete certainly does not need to know how close they spent the night, even though nothing happened. 

So he shakes Mikey's shoulder, carefully, until Mikey rouses. It's sunny enough that he winces at the light, but then he blinks at Patrick, bleary.

'I should go,' Patrick says in a half-whisper. 'I'll be back later.'

He doesn't really know when 'later' is, and Mikey doesn't ask. He just nods, quiet, and licks his lips like he's thirsty. 

Patrick settles the extra blanket over MIkey's shoulders and leaves before Andy can come in and see the way he has trouble not watching Mikey's mouth.

***

Pete doesn't wake up until mid-afternoon, and frankly? He counts that as a win.

Andy's gone -- downstairs, maybe -- and Gerard's not on the futon, and Mikey's … 

Still on the couch, it turns out, when Pete finally pulls his shit together enough to grab his phone and shuffle down the steps. Still on the couch and burrowed so far under the blankets that he might as well have built himself a little tent out of them. Pete gets it, really. It's not like he hasn't done the exact same thing himself. 

His heart hurts a little, but it's probably a bad idea to go over and sit with Mikey. Or wake him up, if he's actually sleeping. Or whatever. 

So to the kitchen it is. Except the kitchen's empty. He feels for his phone, all set to text Andy, when he realizes he's already missed a message from him.

_out. took gee. patrick's fixating in garage be back soon_

Well that's … okay, then. Pete fiddles with the stovetop kettle, shuffles through the fridge, finds food, pours the coffee. He considers going back upstairs, checks his phone two more times, and finally just. Grabs a second mug. And an extra bowl full of leftover pasta. 

And then he sits and dumps more sugar into his own cup, pours more coffee, and sips it until he feels like he's going to crawl out of his skin.

Fuck it.

He sets the kettle to boil one more time, and, when it's done, he sets up a pourover to fill the second mug, and then wanders out to the garage, food and drink in hand. Patrick, as Andy promised, is on his back, half-hidden under Hayley's red Corvette, and Pete's heart aches all over again. 

'Hey?' He manages to speak loud enough to be heard over Patrick's deep cuts off of what sounds like a Michael Jackson album.

Patrick worms his way out from under the car. 'Hey, I--' He pauses when he sees it's Pete. 'Hey.'

All in all, it could probably be worse. Pete sets the coffee and the pasta on the workbench. 'I figured you might need to eat. At some point.'

'Thanks.'

Patrick speaks so softly that it's hard to hear him over the music, but he doesn't look angry. He looks mostly as soft as he sounds, his hair falling out from under his hat, feathering against his jaw. 

Pete hesitates, then shuffles back to the steps and huddles there. Patrick lowers the music and goes for the coffee while it's still hot, mostly ignoring the food.

'Thanks,' he says again, softly. 

It's so obvious that he's trying not to be weird. It's also obvious that he has a split lip. Pete nods, the inside of his chest feeling sticky and too tight. He missed Patrick so much. 

'I'm glad you're here.'

Patrick nods, looking down into his mug. 'Me too.'

The tiny flare of color in Patrick's cheeks gives lie to the quiet, drowsy way he answers. He's flustered, Pete knows. Flustered and pleased and shy and trying to be normal. It breaks Pete's heart a little for how much he wants to distill time down to this moment where it's all quiet even if it's awkward. Where they aren't fighting, and Patrick isn't angry because he's scared, or hiding because he feels bad. 

_I forgive you_ , Pete thinks. It's true. He forgave Patrick forever ago. He'd forgive him for Mikey, too, except he still isn't mad about that. 

He entertains the brief thought that they could both go back into the house and unbury Mikey from his burrow of blankets. They could watch a movie or something, dip into Pete's carefully hidden stash of non-vegan candy. That would be nice. The idea clips through his head like a dream pressed into celluloid, but Patrick sets the coffee mug back down and continues to blush, gently, in the direction of the car. 

'Do you … need any help?' Pete asks, letting all thoughts of Mikey go for the moment.

Patrick nods, catching his split lip between his teeth. He goes to hoist the car's hood up, and Pete slips off the steps, grateful for the chance to come closer. He's not sure what Patrick's doing exactly, but he can at least grab the shop light off its hook and hold it for better visibility.

'Thanks,' Patrick murmurs for the third time. 

Pete just nods. Time must carry them forward, even though he feels vaguely disconnected from it, and from the garage, and from the music that has drifted from Michael Jackson, to Prince, to older, amber melodies that he doesn't recognize. His stomach chews on itself for want of food, but that seems as immaterial as everything else.

He just watches Patrick's shoulders work under his shirt. 

'Patrick?'

Patrick flinches, just along the line of his shoulderblades. 'Yeah?'

'I … um.'

Patrick steps back from the engine bay to look at Pete, but winces when the bright light catches across his face.

'Sorry,' Pete hastens, letting the glare fall. 'I. It's a stupid question.'

'It probably isn't.' The words have an impatient clip to them. Patrick winces again. 'Or. Sorry.'

Pete sighs. 'I was just.' He wants to rub his eyes, but he's still holding the light. Fuck it. Again. What's the point of trying to rebuild something if you can't talk to each other? 'Was Leto hurting Mikey?'

Patrick stares, color rising in his cheeks again; his eyes go dark. A sick twist bunches up Pete's gut.

'Mikey wouldn't talk about it all week,' he adds. 'I mean. I guess only Gerard tried, but … '

'I didn't see him do anything.'

That's not a no. And Patrick does sound angry now -- not that Pete can blame him. It's no secret that Leto's a fucking creep; Pete's so tired of pretending to be scared of him. He thinks of all the nights Mikey slipped out of the loft or came back looking ten miles past tired and, yeah. If he could, he'd find Leto right now and make him pay in blood for all the things Patrick didn't see.

The fluorescent overheads bathe them both in an anesthetized light. It turns Patrick's hair, where it fluffs out from under his hat, a rustier color than it normally is and makes the split place on his lip garnet; all over again, Pete wants to tell him that he isn't mad, that he doesn't care. He's so used to being the one who acts too fast or feels too much or … whatever. The one everyone has to hold back from hitting Leto right in the teeth, from starting shit that he shouldn't start because he doesn't think three steps ahead. Patrick does that kind of thinking.

But Patrick backed Leto off of Mikey.

And he's standing here, looking as angry as Pete feels any time he thinks about Leto, but _especially_ when he thinks about Leto trying to take a pound of flesh out of the people he loves, and it makes Pete feel so much less alone. 

'None of us stopped him,' Pete blurts. 

He isn't sure if he means Leto or Mikey. Both. It's probably both. Definitely. The other edge of anger's blade: shame. But Patrick just looks away from him, back to the engine bay.

'Yeah well. Hindsight's 20/20.' 

It hurts that he sounds bitter again.

They used to fight about shit like this. Pete not taking two seconds to think about something, Patrick wanting to consider things too much. Except now Patrick's the one snapping back, swallowing anger. Teetering somewhere between furious and probably reckless, because violence is what happens when love and rage have nowhere else to go. Violence or self-destruction. 

Pete's never sure which way that coin-toss will land for him. 

He wonders if it should feel like schadenfreude to see Patrick slipping off his weird high horse to join the rest of the world down in the muck of feeling too much. But he remembers Mikey, bundled under all those blankets, refusing help for weeks on end, refusing to _listen_.

All he wants, all of a sudden, is to tell Patrick he understands.

'It's not your fault,' he says, because he's so tired of fighting.

And Patrick's mouth untwists a little. His scowl clears. He looks at Pete, mouth open like he's going to say something, but the door to the loft clangs open first. 

Gerard leans over the threshold, all wide eyes, his face pale.

'Are you okay?' Patrick asks.

'Mikey--'

Pete's heart skips a full beat. 

'He's not out here?' Gerard asks, effectively telling them everything they don't want to hear.

'No,' Patrick answers, slowly, probably because Pete's voice is stuck somewhere in his throat. 

Gerard's gentle, worried face almost crumples. 'Fuck.'

It's all soft, fluttering chaos after that. Andy's inside, calling Ray. Through the bilgewater slosh of guilt in his gut, Pete thinks enough to text Gabe. Gabe, who tells him no, he hasn't seen Mikey in days. 

It got dark outside, somehow. Not late, maybe, but dark. And no one knows where Mikey is, even if they could collectively make a pretty educated guess. 

Pete thinks, more than once, that he legitimately might be sick.

'His phone is off,' Gerard breathes, sitting at the kitchen counter and looking like he might be sick too.

Patrick paces past Pete for the umpteenth time in an hour. He's gonna wear a track in Andy's kitchen floor, like a tiger in a cage. It's so obvious that he's trying not to snap at someone.  
Pete reaches for him without thinking about it, fingers brushing his wrist. It makes Patrick startle, glance at Pete, and oh. 

The look in his eyes cuts straight through to Pete's heart.

'Patrick … '

He gets what he doesn't expect: Patrick's hand turning over, meeting his. Patrick's eyes, big and dark and dilated. Pete can't remember seeing him so scared. He knows it happened once; he was _there_ when it happened. But he can't remember it, not the right way.

'I'm sorry.' Patrick's voice is tight and quiet and Pete can practically see the tower of worst-case-scenarios he's building in his head. 

He curls his fingers. Finds Patrick's knuckles, and feels them. 

'It wasn't you, Trick.'

He expects an argument, or at least a dismissive huff, but he gets neither. Patrick squeezes his hand. Lets Pete draw him close. Pete can feel the tension vibrating through him, but he leans into Pete's side, and Pete supposes that's enough.

***

Mikey feels like he isn't in his car for all that long, but by the time he actually drives for the meetup lot, the clock on his dash promises he's been drifting around the city and pointlessly idling near bodegas for almost four hours. He'll need to stop for gas on the way home.

Even still, he pulls up to the lot fifteen minutes early.

Stupid. 

Nothing to do now. It'll look weird if he drives off and comes back again. So he sits and waits, watching the way nothing moves out there, under the glow of the lot's sole chlorotic light. He's very cold, somehow. It's not a cold night.

He almost jumps out of his skin when knuckles rap on his window.

Leto smirks as soon as Mikey clambers out of the car.

'Glad you could make it.'

Mikey tries not to shiver. Someone else, like Joe or Frank or Andy, would say something clever. He just stares at the night sky, light polluted, over Leto's shoulder. It's not enough. He can still see how Leto's eyes light up.

'Not happy to see me?' Leto taps one heel against the concrete. 'I just want to talk, kiddo; don't worry. I got interrupted last time.'

Mikey thinks of how Leto could send any one of his heavies to Andy's loft. Or Ray's house. He's so exhausted.

'I'm here.' 

It sounds more like a flat statement than a combative sneer. His own voice spoken somewhere just to the left of his head, talking for him without affect.

'That you are,' Leto agrees. 'Good thing. Knowing Patrick Stump, I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to keep you on a leash after that whole scene he made. How is he, by the way?'

Mikey could hear Patrick talking to Pete out in the garage when he slipped out. 

'I don't know.'

Leto scoffs. 'You're a stellar liar, kid.'

'I don't. He's not babysitting me or whatever.'

'I'm sure he isn't.' Leto steps in, not quite touching, but too close, as usual. Mikey wonders if he has a gun. 'And what about you? You tell him anything?'

'To fuck off.'

He wants to shove Leto away, like Patrick did, or would, if he were here. He wishes Patrick were here.

Leto catches him by the chin, makes Mikey look at him. 

'What else?'

'Nothing. I'm not an idiot. Why would I tell him anything?'

Leto grins like there's something about Mikey that he thinks is funny. Mikey can smell … something. Shampoo or soap or something, and he feels sick. He let Patrick think that he was -- is -- fucking Leto, and it worked. It was believable, and in the pit of his stomach Mikey knows it isn't just Leto's rep that made it so.

'People get big ideas,' Leto carries on. 'And Stump doesn't back off without substantial encouragement.'

'I didn't tell him anything.' 

Leto lets him go, but only to pat him on the cheek. His fingers are cold; his eyes, though, are preternatural and warm and bright. 

'I'm glad. Loyalty's important. So I'm sure I can count on you for a favor, can't I?'

His chest tightens. 'I can't drive. I -- the car's not fixed--'

'Calm down.'

Mikey wants to go home. Or cry. Or just pick a direction and drive away and away, into some other life or maybe off a bridge. But all he does is shut his mouth and Leto nods, self-satisfied.

'Good boy. It's just a pickup, that's all.'

There's something about the way he says it that makes Mikey think it's not "just" anything. This whole thing is weird, when he really thinks about it. This should have been a handoff -- or that's what he assumed. But it's just Leto and him, alone. And deviation from the norm is never good, not in the drug mule trade.

He should hit Leto in the mouth and tell him to go fuck himself. 

He nods, instead.

'I need someone I can depend on,' Leto promises, stepping back. 'Just keep an eye out. You'll know when. Don't be late.'

Cool air makes Mikey's skin prickle over, but he doesn't feel his blood turn to water until Leto climbs back into his car and drives away, leaving Mikey alone in the lot, with its gloomy, dusty silence. 

And then he feels dizzy and anoxic.

Back at home, his heart had crawled halfway up his throat when the burner phone went off. He'd had some fever dream of a moment in which he went out to the garage, went and told the truth, and Pete and Patrick knew what to do. Except Leto's the one who hurt Pete. Who almost killed Gerard. Leto's the reason Patrick's so quiet and brittle, and _Mikey's_ the reason that all the fragile little sprouts of hope that are growing between Patrick and Pete almost got ripped up at the roots.

Now, in the parking lot, he slips down the side of the car until he's sitting on concrete, his legs folded up so he can press his face to his knees. Now his vision, every time he tries to breathe, or look up, won't stop humming. 

He climbs back into the car on weak legs as soon as he can physically force himself to do it. The dashboard clock promises another hour and a half has passed. He's still shaking by the time he gets back to Andy's and the fuel meter threatens empty.

He never made it to the gas station. 

He really shouldn't be surprised that his key rasps so loudly in the lock on the front door. His hands won't stop shaking. Still, the sound makes the muscles in the back of his neck flinch, and then the door swings open, and then he's over the threshold and …

He doesn't know what he was expecting, really. Quiet? The same kind of night as every other, when he could sneak back in and lie? It's hard to tell if he's sick or relieved that it's different this time. In Andy's little sitting room, Gerard, Pete, Patrick, and Andy himself all settle on or around the couch, like they've just been waiting for him for the last however many hours. Like some kind of nightmare intervention. He just stands in the doorway, looking back.

'Are you okay?' Andy's voice is soft, and firm, and entirely unflinching. 

Mikey could cry. 

Except he can't. He can't do anything but stand under the lintel, half inside and half outside, not saying anything, not nodding, not moving. There's a weird, roaring sound in his ears. 

'Mikes.'

Gerard this time. Gerard, who loves him so much it makes Mikey sick with guilt. Gerard, who takes his hand, as gentle and careful as he's ever been, like _Mikey's_ the one that needs taking care of, even though Gerard got shot. He laces their fingers together and guides him into the house. 

'Just tell us if you're hurt or something,' Pete blurts.

No? 

Yes, but no.

Not really. 

He's _hurting_ maybe, but that makes sense. He did this to himself. And his throat works, but nothing comes out, and Gerard still hasn't let go of his hand.

'Mikes, it's okay,' he breathes, which is really just his way of saying _no one's going to be mad._

But they should be. Mikey can't say that either. He can't -- all he wanted was for Patrick to stay. Stay through the morning, stay til he woke up. He wanted to come back to Andy's, he wanted to _come home_ all night. He wanted to fix it, and keep Gerard safe, and make Pete happy and he doesn't know how to explain any of it and it braces in his chest, cold and cruel and heartbroken.

'It's … not.' His voice sounds croaky and hoarse, all dragged out of him. Maybe, if it's all going to go up in smoke, he can at least stop lying. 'It's not okay. I've been so fucking stupid.'

'C'mon.' Andy steps in on his other side. 'Sit down.'

He can't possibly sit. His legs feel like lead, like they'll never move again. But by some miracle that he can't divine, Andy and Gerard get him to the couch anyway. And because he is, as he just tried to explain, a fucking idiot, he hazards a glance at Patrick, which means he's also really hazarding a glance at Pete, because Pete …

Pete's pressed so close to Patrick's side, all of a sudden. Or maybe he's been like that the whole time. Something forgiven and forgotten, apparently, in the time it took for Mikey to vanish and return. Patrick didn't stay, but he did come back -- for Pete, maybe.

_Stay like that,_ Mikey thinks. It ricochets around in his head, a little hysterical. _Stay like that. You need each other._

Patrick just watches him, his brutal, stony-faced rage strapped just under control by the looks of it. He was so vicious, holding Mikey down against the carhood. His mouth was so hot. It felt like a triumph, getting that.

Leto's backed Mikey up against cars too. 

He doesn't know what's fucking wrong with him, that he wants one and not the other.

'Mikey,' Andy coaxes. 'What's going on?'

'I don't know how … ' he chokes. Pete's pretty fingers curl around Patrick's wrist. Mikey doesn't know if it's to hold him back from something or to make an anchor of the lobes of bone in his wrist. 'I just -- it's. It's complicated--'

Except it isn't.

It's just stupid. 

He looks at his lap so he doesn't have to see Patrick's face, or Gerard's. 

'I told him … I. I told him I'd move--'

The rest gets stuck, like a lump of silly putty gumming up his throat. It doesn't matter. Gerard's hand flinches in his, and he sounds so heartbroken.

'Mikey, no.'

Mikey can't look at him.

'It was just. Just moving, I didn't. I promise, I didn't take it. I didn't sell it, or--'

All the sorries he could have said seem so pale now, in the face of everything. He wants Gerard to say it's okay again. He wants to go to sleep and never wake up. He can't even cry.

'Why?' 

Patrick's voice. The question is very abrupt, and someone hisses a sucked-in breath. Pete, Mikey recognizes, even though he isn't looking. 

'I mean,' Patrick tries again. 'What did he … how did he make you?'

Mikey can barely see for how much his vision's tunneling. Somewhere that isn't here, a gunshot blasts so hard he thinks for a minute that the world had shattered like broken glass. And the muzzle blared, and Gerard fell and Mikey couldn't catch him fast enough, and there was blood everywhere. 

He keeps staring at his lap.

'It was him,' Mikey manages. 'At the diner, Gee, he had you--'

A gelid silence gathers in the room, thick and clotted. Mikey wishes they would stop looking at him. Or that someone would say something. He wishes he'd just given Leto a reason to shoot _him_ and not Gerard. Karmic retribution, or whatever. 

'He hurt you, Gee,' Mikey chokes. 'He said if I didn't … if I didn't help him, he'd do it again.'

Gerard's hand goes so tight in his own. The silence gets colder, however that's possible. Mikey can feel how rigid Andy is on his other side; not shaking, just strong somehow. Strong and angry and not afraid. 

Mikey can't not look at Pete this time. Pete who meets his eyes, entirely unshocked. He still grips at Patrick's wrist, whiteknuckled, and there's so much fire in his eyes, like he understands exactly how this happened. How far Mikey might go to protect someone he loves. Mikey wants to get up and go to him, except his legs still aren't working. 

And Patrick's still so close to him.

And watching Mikey, his gaze dark with fury.

He wasted no time, shoving to get between Mikey and Leto. He didn't flinch, he didn't quail. He thought Mikey was worth something, maybe, and Mikey … just went back to Leto again. 

'I'm sorry.' He grips Gerard's hand. 'I'm -- I didn't want him to hurt you.'

Gerard. Patrick. Any of them. 

It sounds so fucking stupid.

'He doesn't get to hurt you either,' Pete snarls. 

Mikey's head aches. 'He didn't. I. He didn't.'

Patrick's eyes flash, but it's Andy who answers:

'I'm pretty sure extortion counts for hurting, Mikey.'

Mikey can't do this. He can't, and he can't look away from Pete.

'That's not the point.' He wishes his voice didn't tremble. 'It's not--'

'The point,' Andy cuts in, 'is that this stops. I'm fucking stopping it. _We're_ fucking stopping it.'

He reaches for his phone and Mikey's stomach plummets like a hot lead ball through butter. 

'Don't--' his voice has gone past trembling into a rasping quake. 'We. You can't call the cops--'

Andy stops moving, and for a second he looks almost like he's going to reach out to Mikey, but then he shakes his head a little and says, 'Hey, relax. I'm calling Toro. That's all. We just need to … plan, I guess.'

A roaring sound fills Mikey's ears. A railway tunnel, except he can't see the train, and he can't see the way out, all he can hear is the noise at full speed. 

He can't stop shaking. 

It's a luxury of having somewhere to call a home, that he can afford to fall apart now. He knows that. He does. He held it and held it and held it, the oversteer of his emotions, in a perfect drift for so long -- and now he's _home_ and he can hit the wall. 

Home. 

He has a fucking home, and he's ruined it. Gerard tugs at his wrist a little and Mikey's gaze skitters away from Pete then from Patrick and he hears Andy say '--need to get over here, or we'll come to you--'

'I--' he starts, and can't finish. 

He just lurches to his feet and literally breaks for the stairs. Not at a run, he can't force his legs to work fast enough for that, but he needs to go, he needs to go _now_ before he starts to hyperventilate or something equally stupid. Except Gerard doesn't let the fuck go so Mikey just … tows him, as far as the bottom step before his knees almost give out. Gerard's good arm slips around his waist. 

'C'mon, Mikes.'

He lets Gerard lead, and makes the colossal mistake of glancing back. Pete still has his hand on Patrick's wrist. Mikey's heart cracks. The pain is another thing in the wreckage of whatever else he's broken, but -- at least he didn't break them too. 

He can hardly feel his feet on the steps.

Gerard pulls him to the futon and lays him down like he's a child. At the first touch of his hand to Mikey's hair, though, Mikey curls away. Gerard has never hurt him, never ever, but even here in the calm and the gloom it's too much all of a sudden. 

'Just leave me alone,' he breathes, and Gerard goes quietly still and stiff.

'Mikes--'

'Please. Please, just.' 

He can't look at his brother. A moment stretches on forever, and Mikey's sure Gerard is going to try and talk to him, or just stay and try to soothe him anyway.

But the futon shifts.

He listens to Gerard's soft footsteps, going back down the stairs, and his stomach cramps again. He hugs the blankets tight around himself despite the warmth in the loft, presses his face into the pillows and waits for the dark to get so fuzzy and close that he can at least pretend he fell asleep. 

***

The situation is … not great. To put it mildly. 

Gerard comes back down the stairs just as soon as Andy hangs up. Pete still can't quite make himself let go of Patrick's wrist.

'Ray thinks we should go to his place,' Andy says.

Gerard glances up at the loft, and doesn't have to say a single word for Pete to know what he's thinking. 

'I'll stay with him,' he offers before he really thinks about what he's saying.

Gerard, Andy, and Patrick all look at him. Patrick's wrist is still warm against his palm, pulse thumping against Pete's heartline.

'I mean--' Pete tries not to wince. 'Like, he doesn't … seem like he should go anywhere. But Gerard if you wanna stay … '

Gerard glances at the loft one more time, then shakes his head slowly.

'No.' His voice rasps a little. 'I think … just. Don't let anything happen, okay?'

Pete nods, but it feels a little like an empty gesture. Mikey was here all day and somehow Pete managed to miss him slipping out because of his own personal drama or whatever. He hasn't proven himself the best caretaker so far.

He can do better, is the point.

'It'll be okay,' he promises.

He can feel Patrick looking at him, but somehow can't make himself look back until Andy goes to get the keys to his truck with Gerard in quiet tow.

'Pete,' Patrick says softly.

He looks so _angry_ , still. Not as angry as he did when Mikey was down here, twisting himself to anxious pieces, but Pete's known him long enough to recognize all the things he isn't saying in his posture and the tightness along his jaw. And god. He knows. He really really knows. 

Pete wants him to stay too.

'We'll be okay,' he promises. 

Patrick nods, glances up at the loft, and when his mouth twists in a thin frown of guilt, Pete braces himself for another apology that he doesn't want to hear. Instead he gets:

'Okay. We'll see you soon.'

He slips away, and Pete doesn't hold on to him, and just. Okay. It's okay. Sort of. When Patrick follows Andy and Gerard out the door, there's nothing left but silence. Pete itches all over while he waits in the quiet, an angry anxiety humming under his skin like electric netting. He fishes his laptop out from under the rickety coffee table and sets up shop on the ugly couch and picks at his nailbeds while time oozes by. 

Things creep past the hour mark before the loft stairs creak and Pete looks up to see Mikey, bleary and muzzy and still exhausted, standing on the steps and blinking around. Seeing him like this aches in Pete's belly.

He taps the spacebar on his laptop to pause the movie he's not really watching, and Mikey blinks again, startled by the sudden click. 

'Where's everyone else?' he asks in something that's mostly a whisper, even though the dead silence surely has to be the giveaway that they're alone in here. 

'Ray's,' Pete answers, almost as quiet. He has this irrational fear that if he spooks Mikey, the guy will dart straight out of the loft. 'C'mon,' he adds, getting up carefully. 'Hurley left us snacks.'

Mikey follows him to the kitchen, but it's a wooden, autopilot kind of following, Pete can tell. Half of him is still behind the veil of … something. Shock, or self-loathing, or whatever it is for Mikey. The rest of him is going through the motions. If Pete had said 'c'mon, let's sit and watch this movie,' he would have done that too. 

It's safer in the kitchen, though, where Mikey sits at the bar while Pete digs Andy's weird, slimy homemade granola and chia seed pudding cups out of the fridge. He fucking hates these things and he hates that they get classified as snacks, but he passes a cup to Mikey and gets another for himself, and plucks the weird fancy sodas out for good measure, because they should at least have something tasty if they're going to do this, and maybe as much as Mikey needs someone to be with him right now, Pete needs something to do that isn't just fidgeting and being angry. 

And this -- feeding Mikey, putting food in front of him, whatever -- is so easy to do. It's so easy to set anger aside when it's Mikey that needs something.

He watches Mikey poke at the greyish pudding, and decides to break the ice by asking: 

'So, like. Scale-wise, where are we? One to ten, if one is flaming garbage and ten is … Laguna Beach but without the rich people and the tourists.'

Mikey just shrugs. 'Like, a three.' 

Pete scuffs his heel on the floor and keeps going. 'So, not on fire. Cool.'

Mikey prods at the pudding again, his soda untouched. 

'Did Gerard make you stay here to watch me?' 

'It was more like a group consensus.'

'Awesome.'

'Well we can't let you Irish-goodbye your way out two times in a night. That's like a fool-me-twice situation. Sorry I couldn't get you a hotter babysitter, though -- we can stay up late to make up for it if you want.'

Mikey shrugs again. 'You don't have to be nice to me.'

It's Pete who shrugs this time, like it's a tennis match or something. 'I kinda thought about that when we were in the ER, but then I got over it.'

Mikey scoffs under his breath, and it really does remind Pete of the ER -- so acutely that his chest hurts for a second. Mikey shouldn't have to laugh at the idea of someone being nice to him. 

He watches Mikey watch pudding slide off his spoon, glutinous and cold. 

'This shit is gross,' Mikey says softly. 'This is why I'm not vegan.'

'Animal rights be damned, I'm not eating gloop?' Pete quirks an eyebrow. 'I like a man with strong convictions.' He twirls his own cup between his fingers, meditating on it. 'Yeah, it is gross. Let's go get Oreos before Andy comes back and judges us.'

'Oreos are vegan,' Mikey points out, but he's already abandoned both pudding cup and spoon, so he's clearly on board with the plan. 'Frank eats them.'

'Yeah, but they're bad for you,' Pete points out. 'Whatever that means. C'mon, we're on a cookie mission.'

Mikey lets Pete lead him to the Bluebird and gets in the passenger's seat like he's totally down with this mission … to the grocery store but whatever, it's a mission because they have to achieve it before Andy comes home. He stares out the windshield like there's something out there beyond patchy streetlights and the eldritch glow of a city that's basically undead. 

Pete can't really look at him because he's driving but he can see enough out of the corner of his eye, Mikey's down-turned mouth and his shadowed eyes and the aching curve of his spine. The feeling in the pit of Pete's stomach is something sore and warm and clenching. 

_I love you_ he thinks. _I've been in love with you this whole time_. 

It's abrupt, as realizations go, but it's true. And he's probably known it for a long while, but it feels sharper, in better focus now. Still, he keeps it to himself. It's not really what Mikey needs to hear right now, that much is obvious.

Mikey looks ashamed and miserable and like he'll wither up and die if anyone tries to love him. Pete knows how that feels. The hangover of a bad decision. 

He pulls into the parking lot at the grocery store and half expects to have to go and open the door for Mikey but he unfolds himself out without help, and follows Pete into the store. 

They find Oreos, towards the back aisles. The packets are a little crushed like they were stacked in a hurry, and there are always more flavours of Oreo than Pete realises, every time he actually looks at a shelf of them. He reaches for a packet of … plain? Original? Whatever you call them, the chocolate cookies with the fake cream in the middle. 

'Do we need anything else?' Mikey asks, startling Pete into almost dropping a package.

'Nah, we can still pillage Andy's sodas if we're quick.'

He tucks their blue-packed plunder under his arm.

'I meant like, around the house,' says Mikey, but he follows Pete when Pete starts walking to the checkouts. 

Pete shrugs, fishing out his wallet. 'I think we're good. Hurley goes shopping every five fucking minutes because vegetables don't keep. C'mon,' and he really has to stop saying that because it's like a magic word in how it just … gets Mikey to follow him, through paying and out the door and back into the car, on the road to the loft. 

He doesn't want to wear it out or overuse it, give Mikey a reason to not follow, or to leave, when it's plain as any fucking thing that he needs so badly to not be alone. Pete will not leave him to be alone. Maybe ever again.

The urge to put an arm around him is so strong it's like one of those neodymium magnets they tell you not to leave around little kids in case they swallow them -- pulling in Pete's gut like Mikey's the other pole and Pete'll end up with a hole in him if they're separated too long.

Pete doesn't. Personal space is a thing. Particularly for a guy who's been … doing whatever, with a creep. Unsolicited hugs are on the no-fly list. 

Also Pete's driving, but like. Minor details. Changing gear is for the weak. It's not a consideration, not compared to the importance of reading the minutiae of Mikey's sotto voce body language. 

It's almost 4am by the time they get back to Andy's.

Mikey hesitates on the threshold of the door from the garage to the loft. A misstep, a bitten-lip, and Pete almost walks into him. He catches himself, but can't help but noticing the tiny stiffening of shoulders while Mikey looks at the door. 

He places a hand very, very carefully on Mikey's shoulder. 

'Let's eat them out here.' He forces cheer into the words. 'If Andy catches crumbs on his carpet we're toast.'

He doesn't know why exactly Mikey doesn't want to go inside, but whatever, it doesn't matter why, it just matters that Mikey doesn't want to. 

They curl back up against the front passenger wheel arch of the Bluebird. The engine ticks itself cool, and Pete takes a breath against that metronome, and reaches for the packet of Oreos to tear it open and offer one to Mikey. 

Mikey takes it and bites into it with zero ceremony, but he chews like it's turned to ash in his mouth, or salt -- something osmotic and bitter, drawing on him. 

His expression twists after he eats the second, final bite of the cookie. He stares at his hands, and says, 'I didn't … Leto never--' his voice catches, and he tries again. 'It wasn't how … it looked, I guess.'

Pete's about to say something, probably trite and tired, dredged from his aching brain about how you can't consent if you're being coerced, and then Mikey adds:

'I never fucked him.' He tucks his knees up to his chest and hooks his arms around them. 'Like. I did some really fucking stupid things, but. Not that.'

He peeks over his kneecaps, waiting to be judged. Like it had to be explicit assault for Pete to care, or something. He can't tell if Mikey thinks not fucking Leto makes what he did better or worse, pardonable or unforgiveable. And it's true that Pete's glad, so fucking glad, that it wasn't that, but it's a cold comfort. Pete's seen Leto sleaze on enough people; it's not like that's more okay if it's not explicitly sexual. He doesn't need a forensic file and an itemised list of what Leto _did_ do to know it was cruel. There aren't levels, or … or thresholds. Shooting Gerard, blackmailing Mikey, drawing him away from everything safe and good in the middle of the fucking night and making people think -- whatever. Pete isn't tallying up points, and nothing Mikey could ever say will make Pete blame him for this clusterfuck. 

Andy said it right. Extortion is hurting. _Hurting_ is hurting. 

He wishes he could find a way to tell Mikey it doesn't matter that they didn't fuck, without using words that will make it sound like a bad thing, or like Pete doesn't care. He has to say something, though. However clunky and inelegant and probably worsemaking it comes out, he has to say something. 

'You were trying to keep Gerard safe,' he goes with, and fuck, his voice threatens to crack too. 'I get it, Mikeyway.'

Mikey's clearly biting his lip, behind his knees, and his eyes are huge and dry. 

Pete lamely offers him the Oreo packet again, because like, something something blood sugar, and because he can't hug him. Mikey takes another and twists the cookies apart, but doesn't eat them this time, just stares myopically at the filling like it's the middle distance.

'I just. Everyone assumed. And I needed an alibi, I guess. It worked.'

Pete nods, throat swelling and catching. It did work. They did all assume. 

Mikey's hunchover pose makes him lean sideways, into Pete's space, and if they were on the couch he'd put an arm around him. He's 90% sure Mikey wants it, but there's still that other 10% and they're still on the floor and Pete's still holding the fucking packet of Oreos. 

'But I swear, I'm not the fucking dealer's girlfriend, or whatever,' Mikey almost growls. 

'Okay,' Pete agrees, because he isn't going to add _but you got hurt_. That's counterproductive. And anyway it doesn't seem like Mikey puts that much import on being hurt as a consequence, which makes Pete's heart ache. 

Mikey fidgets with the two half-Oreos in his hands. 'I'm sorry,' he mumbles. 

Pete's so tired of people thinking they should apologize to him; he's not _owed_ a fucking apology. All it does is leave him feeling hollow on the inside -- the same huge, cavernous feeling he recognises from watching Patrick's taillights go the wrong way sideways. The urge to brush away everything that hurts, or that caused the hurt. The urge to dive headfirst in for someone, over something he can't fix. 

_He's_ sorry.

'You're gonna hate this,' he says. 'But you really don't have to apologize.'

Mikey flinches a little and keeps staring at the neat little cookies. 'No, I mean...'

Pete's hackles rise a little bit. He kind of ... doesn't need or want him to explain. But if Mikey needs to like, bleed off this wound or something, he doesn't wanna stop him, either. He inches closer, til their knees touch, a compromise on the hug, and nearly bites his tongue when Mikey slumps into him.

'Mean what?' Pete nudges him, when he doesn't say anything else, when his heartbeat counts off a slow tick against Pete's ribs but he keeps his hands tight to his own chest. Pete sets the Oreos down, but that's all. Mikey sighs softly.

'Just. I didn't mean for any of this shit to happen.'

Pete finally puts his arm around Mikey's shoulder. 'I know.'

Mikey's inhale is long and shivering. He's so rigid still, like his voice is stuck somewhere in his bones and is drawing him up tight. 

'I'm sorry about Patrick, too.'

The words lance right through Pete's chest. 

There's no way to say he doesn't care about that either, because he _does_ care, but only because there's something off-kilter in his heart, weighted on one end by Mikey, and on the other by Patrick, and unbalanced completely without them.

He must be quiet for too long, because Mikey moves against him, but not to get away.

'Pete--'

In one word, the tide of heartbreak.

The only person Pete's furious with isn't even here. He squeezes Mikey's shoulder.

'It's all right, Mikey. I promise.'

The familiar engine note of Andy's pickup roars up outside and cuts out, and Mikey's fist finds Pete's t-shirt. When Gerard pokes his head in the garage, expression so afraid it cuts Pete into ribbons, the way they're together is definitely, finally a hug. Gerard looks like he's going to collapse with relief. He comes to them.

'Hurley says we all need to go to bed if we're going to deal with this shit in the morning,' he says softly, and helps Pete get Mikey, still scared, but warm, off the floor.

***

It's a clear morning when Andy rolls out of bed, and he's pretty sure that he only actually slept for three hours, at best, but he makes himself shower, go for a run, make a grocery list, and wipe down the bathroom surfaces -- again, Christ -- before he lines up eight mugs, which is all the mugs he has, on his benchtop and glares at them a little. Then he fetches some spoons.

He's not actually expecting Toro and company for another hour or so but sue him, he's fidgety.

So is Gerard, if the soft sounds of his feet shuffling into the kitchen are anything to go by.

'Morning,' he says, softly, when Andy looks up.

'Hey.'

Gerard looks about as good now as he did last night --so, not great -- but Andy doesn't remark on it. He sets his kettle to boil, fills two of the mugs with coffee when it's ready, and passes one to Gerard. Pete, Andy suspects, must really be asleep out there in his blanketpile on the couch -- otherwise he'd be in here, puppy-eyeing for a mug of his own. 

As it stands, he passes the creamer and sweetener to Gerard and turns back to the stove. His kettle isn't big enough to actually make eight cups worth of hot water. It's going to take a goddamn stew pot to boil enough water to make everyone coffee simultaneously. He might as well just put the thing on now, it's not like they won't all want refills, too. 

Gerard watches him set up, asks if he can help, and wrinkles his nose when Andy says no. He can deal, Andy has firmly decided.

By the time the water's finally starting to come to the boil, there's a knock at the door. He lets Gerard get it, because he has this hunch--

'Hey, Gee, how are you? How's he doing?' 

\--that Toro might be the one knocking. 

Frank, surprising absolutely no one, but especially not Andy, stomps his way past Gerard and Ray's early-morning courtship ritual and right into the kitchen. Andy catches a snatch of Gerard's answer -- _still sleeping_ \-- before Patrick appears in Frank's wake looking like death warmed over. He and Frank both set out plates of breakfast muffins because … of course.

Andy just sighs, setting up the pourovers. 

'Take the food out to the living room,' he instructs, and gives Frank, in particular, a look. 'And sit down.'

'Wentz is hogging the couch.'

'I'm pretty sure you can figure something out.'

Not less than thirty seconds later, Andy hears Pete's _what the_ fuck _, Iero_ and laughs to himself. 

More shuffling, and shoe-dropping, and jacket-rustling out in the sitting room. 

'Hell of a week, huh?'

Joe materializes beside the counter, his hair still fluffy and bedhead-mashed on one side. He reaches to help Andy assembly-line the mugs.

'Never a dull moment,' Andy agrees.

Joe knocks Andy's elbow with his own and Andy smiles. Hell, at least, improves with company. He nods to the four already-full mugs and Joe sweeps away with what he can. Andy follows with the rest.

The cramped sitting room is a scene of minor chaos. Pete's hunched on the floor, still mostly buried under blankets, glowering at Frank who's all spread out on one half of the couch, looking smug. Gerard's on the other half, substantially less smug, and Joe and Ray sit almost shoulder-to-shoulder on the floor. They're cute, Andy thinks, feeling their way through a nascent friendship. Andy would like to think there'll be time for that to keep happening, assuming they all make it through this shitshow in one piece.

He passes out the remainder of the mugs, coming last to Patrick who has situated himself against the couch, sort of squished in the space between Gerard and Frank's legs. It takes a soft _Patrick_ to get his attention and even then, he takes the mug mechanically, his gaze drifting back to the staircase.

Andy sometimes wonders why all his friends are such maladjusted weirdos. 

'So, we're definitely cracking skulls, right?' Frank says without preamble.

Exhibit A.

Andy drops down next to Ray. 'We might want a slightly more fleshed-out plan,' he says, but he can't bite back his almost smirk. Trust Frank to lighten the mood even under the grimmest of circumstances. 'But I like where your head's at, Iero.'

Frank preens.

'Did Mikey say anything?' Joe asks, glancing towards the stairs. 'About Leto, I mean. Is someone keeping tabs on Mikey, or … ' He halts, making a face. 'Fuck, okay, I don't really know how druglords do things.'

'Someone's going to be waiting for him at some point, if he's moving shit,' Gerard's … more than a little hoarse, and the room gets substantially cooler. At Joe's side, Ray flinches like he wants to move then thinks the better of it. Gerard sucks his lips between his teeth, tremulous. 'We haven't really had a chance to talk about it, though,' he adds, heavy and tired-sounding.

A twist of something angry and protective burns through Andy's gut. He can still remember last night -- maybe because it was only a few hours ago -- with Gerard in the front seat of his truck, looking sick and stricken.

_I should have known,_ he whispered, his voice trembling, while the streetlights blurted past them. _I should've … with the fucking midnight calls …_

His breath broke up on the edge of a soft sob, and he covered his face when he hiccoughed. Andy pulled the fucking truck over just to touch his shoulder and let him burn through the tears before they actually got to Toro's. When it was over, Gerard scrubbed at his eyes and his _sorry, I'm sorry,_ came with a shaky exhalation. Andy just rubbed his back, gently.

Right now, he exhales in one tight rush through his nose.

'So.' He glances to the loft. 'We intercept.'


	11. Chapter 11

It's a bad plan.

It's a bad plan that, at this point, Mikey can't do anything to stop. That he knew he wouldn't be able to stop as soon as he handed the burner phone to Gerard, face hot. 

Everything started going faster than he could keep up with, after that final act of … confession? Contrition? Admission? 

He sits with his head on the counter in Andy's kitchen, listening to the commotion out in the sitting room. It's been four days since the … everything … and he still feels like he's going to be sick. Nothing in the inevitable text said this pickup would be any different than usual, but Leto's cryptic attitude in the lot makes him certain it is. It's not SOP for the goddamn drug baron himself to come out and meet his mules, or to blackmail them himself, or any of the rest of it, and yet.

Even when he pointed this out, no one batted an eye. 

So now they have a pair of Toyota MR2s, fast and boring and retrofitted to identicality, and Pete, Patrick, and Frank are going to risk their lives to intercept Leto's fucking _drug racket_ just to … keep Mikey safe?

His heart sinks a little lower. Gerard -- or someone, he doesn't know -- left the burner phone on the counter. Mikey pinwheels it between his fingers, tapping one plasticky corner and then the next on the bartop. Out in the sitting room, Pete's voice crests just a bit over the rest of the conversation. It was a weird four days; Mikey didn't see much of Pete, or Patrick for that matter, in the middle of all the rush of preparing to bust up an actual drug handoff involving actual criminals and probably actual weapons. Mikey sucks his lips between his teeth and wishes he could will himself to just walk out to be with everyone else. He should at least see them off, it's only their lives they're putting on the line. He should actually go be with Ray and Andy and Joe, maybe, since all this was _theirs_ before it was ever Mikey's. 

He should go hug Pete because -- just because. 

'Mikey?'

His shoulders flinch. He sits up enough, pressing the burner phone between the countertop and his palm. Patrick stands just at the other end of the counter, down by the door, looking at him. The light from the sitting room -- the only light; Mikey never bothered with the ones in the kitchen -- makes faint splashes in here and catches on one side of Patrick's face, drawing him up like an erasure-drawing, the kind Gerard used to do, wiping away charcoal to excavate something delicate. His hair falls in a soft sweep over his forehead. 

'Yeah?' Mikey wishes his voice didn't sound all croaky.

'You're hiding,' Patrick says, softly.

He's always so … blunt, Mikey thinks. Cagey and weird and awkward, but blunt when he decides to say what he's thinking, like he never got to be very good at lying, or even finessing the truth into gentler words. He sounds gentle right now, though, even if the words aren't. Mikey can't stop looking at him.

'I'm not helping anything,' he says. 'I'd just be in the way.'

Patrick's mouth twitches. 'We're getting ready to head out,' is his answer, instead of an argument, maybe. 'I just--'

'Patrick.'

Patrick falls silent, and maybe there's still talking happening out in the other room, but all Mikey can hear is his own heartbeat, loud in his ears. In one of many empty lots, Leto's frostwhite smile slashes through the dark, promising malice.

'You don't have to do this,' Mikey tells him. 'You, Pete. It's a stupid plan. You don't -- you don't have to. You don't.'

'Yeah we do.'

It's another weird, too-blunt rebuttal and it hits Mikey somewhere in the sternum. He opens his mouth to protest, but his throat closes up, so he just looks down at the burner phone instead. 

'It's stupid,' he mumbles again.

'I know.'

Mikey glances at him. He thinks of Pete with his fingers curled around Patrick's wrist. It was the only time he'd ever seen them really touch each other, but it looked so … unafraid, somehow, like some out-of-step mechanism had suddenly clicked back into place, like they fit, the way everyone else seems to remember them fitting. The way two people would have to fit, for one of them to risk life and limb for the other. And he aches, his whole heart aches, to think he might only get to see that once. 

In the world where he isn't a colossal fuckup, maybe it would be different. Maybe he would even get to see what it's like when Patrick smiles the way Pete smiles, unguarded and happy. 

He tries to not think about how much his throat hurts.

'Just … don't let Pete get hurt?' he says softly. 'I don't. I -- please come back? It's not the same without you.'

Which -- that's true, yes, and is also obvious. He's never had anything like this before, he never had anyone except Gerard before, and 'all this' adds up to so much now, including Gerard. 

Including Patrick.

And _it's not the same_ isn't even close to what he means. He just feels scared and stupid, staring at the ugly little phone.

'Mikey…' Patrick starts. 

His ears _burn_. 'Please?' He chances a glance at Patrick, hoping that might … do something. 'Bring him back, okay? Just don't let him--' His breath breaks a little bit. 'We don't have to keep fighting.'

He doesn't expect what he gets, which is Patrick coming closer. Close enough that Mikey almost flinches away, except there's not really anywhere to go, not between the counter and Patrick, unless Mikey wants to tumble off his stool onto his ass. It leaves them stuck and looking at each other in the half-dark. The way Patrick looks, the way he doesn't answer, makes Mikey scared that it was the wrong thing to say, or that he said it the wrong way and he can't do anything but look right back at Patrick.

'I don't want to keep fighting,' he tries again. 

He's so tired of fighting. Pete held onto Patrick's wrist and all Mikey wanted was to look at them with each other and to see Pete smile again and see Patrick see it too.

Patrick touches the back of his hand very gently. 'Mikey. We're going to come back, okay?'

Mikey jerks a nod. 'Okay.'

'We'll talk then?'

'Okay.'

Patrick's hand falls away and Mikey's fingers twitch. 

'Okay,' Patrick exhales. 'I should go.'

Mikey slips off his stool to follow him out into the sitting room. It's like a weird military sendoff, with everyone waiting their turn to offer Pete or Patrick or Frank some approximation of a hug -- or just get bearhugged, regardless, in Frank's case. Mikey just grips the burner phone so tight the bevelled edges of it dig into his palm. Patrick only gives him one more look and doesn't hug him, but the same can't be said for Frank, who squeezes Mikey as tight as he always does, until Mikey feels like he can't quite breathe.

'We've got this, Mikes,' Frank insists, and Mikey tries for a smile.

It's Pete that hugs him for the longest, though. Mikey just curls his hands in the back of Pete's shirt and doesn't know what to say. Pete doesn't say anything either, but Mikey doesn't miss the gentle way his arms go tight before he steps back. 

And then they're gone before there's much chance to stand around and second-guess anything. 

'I'll make tea,' Andy says, heading back for the kitchen.

Mikey can't think of anything he wants less, except maybe food. Or to have to sit in a room where everyone else is also anxious. 

'I'm … gonna go upstairs,' he says softly.

No one argues, but Gerard gives him a sad look. Because Mikey's heart needed to sink a little lower. 

He really does try to rest upstairs, but it's an endeavor that lasts all of twenty minutes. He can't get comfortable on the futon, the loft feels weirdly claustrophobic, the soft voices from downstairs make his brain _click_. With a sigh, he kicks his way off the bed and slips down the stairs as silently as possible to go for the garage. 

At least it's quiet out there.

He doesn't know why it makes him feel better to sit on the concrete floor, wedged between the front tire arches of the Trans Am and the Bluebird, but it does. The cars feel big and steady. He tips his head against steel siding and closes his eyes. If he can't sleep through this, at least he can try to drift in the silence. His eyes hurt anyway.

He tucks his knees to his chest and lets his head loll just a little bit, feeling the slow, dark sinusoid rhythm of his own heartbeat. It's warmish out here in a way that feels better than inside. It smells of grease and steel -- and it's home. As long as Pete and Patrick and Frank come back.

He hugs his knees a little tighter. 

When the burner phone goes off, he knocks his head against the tire bay, it startles him so much. Because -- because _no_ , it's not. It has to be some kind of phantom feeling. He's had that before, the odd bzzt of his thigh in the spot where a phone normally rests, a little spurt of anxiety-adrenaline from the part of his brain that's addicted to whatever it is the phone gives him, and tries to keep producing it for itself. 

But it's not. It's not real.

It can't be real.

He tugs the burner free of his pocket with a shivering hand, and his stomach squeezes sick, sick, sick at the little alert on the phone. _1 Message._

One message that reads: _Change of plans_ and follows with a new address. 

On autopilot, he reaches for his phone -- his actual phone -- and calls Pete's number, and then Patrick's, when Pete's goes right to voicemail. Patrick's does too, because of course it does. So does Frank's. Of course their phones are off, they're--

He's on his feet before he thinks about it, scrambling to the workbench where Andy keeps all the keys. A clutch of mismatched keyrings glitter at him in the dull light, none of them right, none of them the Bluebird, none, none. His hands shake, the clatter of the keys on stainless steel shivering through his bones. He knocks a few to the floor before his eye catches Gerard's stupid, fuzzy blue mousecat keychain and his heartrate slows by one count. Mousecat's little silicone eyes look at him like it knows what he's thinking, which is stupid, because it's just a dumb good-luck charm.

He stares back, numb.

'Mikes?' Gerard's 75% of the way through the garage door, with a mug in hand, giving off the scent of coffee. Mikey startles again, hard enough that the keys on the mousecat chain jingle. Gerard zeroes in on them, like a dog spotting a rabbit. Fuck. 

'You going somewhere?' he asks Mikey slowly. Dude-on-a-bridge-railing slowly. He steps forward and goes to put the coffee down on the shelving unit closest to the door, on the shelf where sticky mug-rings overlap like the John Bonham symbol writ over and over and over, the only space in the garage that's safe from grease and dust and engine gunk. 

Mikey steps back. His thigh bumps the Trans Am's front fender. 

'I have to go,' he says, the words thick in his throat, the burner phone hot in his palm. 'I -- the fucking dropoff changed, and the guys don't know, and I--'

Gerard's face practically goes white.

'No,' he says, and the mug tips, not fully on the shelf as he lets it go. The smash is slowmotion inevitable, and the reek of good coffee blooms in the room along with the sound of shattered ceramic and Gerard isn't trying to not spook Mikey anymore, he's trying to grab him before he can jump. 

Mikey lets himself be grabbed.

'Yes,' he says, flatly, proud of the fact that for fucking once his voice isn't wobbling. 'Gee, I have to. They're gonna get caught, they'll get _hurt_ \-- they're waiting for the wrong thing. I have to--'

Out beyond the door, Mikey can hear someone, maybe Ray, say, _'what was that? No, like, a smashing noise--'_

'They'll figure something out, Mikey--'

'How? They won't know something's wrong til they show up and it all goes to hell.' He twists away from Gerard and from the sound of oncoming footsteps. 'I'm not asking, Gee, I'm _going_. I can't -- I can't just fucking sit on my ass, okay? They're doing this for _me_ , what kind of fucking person lets--' He can hear the way his own voice rises, yelling at Gerard because there's no one else to yell at. He sucks in a deep breath, forces himself down again, because this isn't Gerard's fault. When he's as calm as he thinks he can be, he says 'I just want them to come home, Gee. I need them to come home. All of them.'

Gerard searches Mikey's face and the silence and the sincerity in his eyes makes Mikey want to hug him. He takes one step back instead. 

'I'm going. I have to. They have to come home.'

Gerard reaches again, but this time it's to grab Mikey by the back of the neck, to pull their foreheads close. 'Okay,' he breathes, and his eyes are too close and too bleak and Mikey's chest hurts. 'Okay. Just, you better fucking come home too, alright?'

Mikey nods, tightly. Gerard shoves him. 'Better get going before you have to have this argument three more times.'

The Trans-Am belches and backfires but by the time Ray, Joe and Andy have burst into the garage, they're just bewildered faces in Mikey's rearview. 

***

Pete knows his job will get easier. Two precision drivers is what they needed, and two precision drivers is what they now have. Him and Patrick, and he's driving decoy so Patrick and Frank can actually make off with the … whatever it is that Leto's been making Mikey mule around for months. And when he's actually _driving_ , it'll be easy. He knows what he's good at. He knows he's good at this. 

But right now, he has to wait, and it's excruciating. 

A little ways down the block, he can see Patrick's car -- identical to his own -- sitting silent in some sketchy looking lot. There's another car, too, that he doesn't recognize, and a third one essentially half-hidden in shadows across the street. Pete … doesn't love that. Mikey insisted that it was never more than one car that showed up, it was always just some anonymous other driver, and now there are _two_ extra cars just. Idling. Surveilling, maybe? Pete doesn't know. But it's too dark and he's just sitting here off to the side of the road halfway behind a shuttered-up shop with peeling paint on the windows reading BURGERS FRIES AND MORE and he's too far away to actually _do_ much. And he's going to crawl out of his fucking skin.

He squints at what he can make out in the lot -- someone shuffling in the dark, maybe? -- and tries not to grind his teeth.

Patrick hadn't even argued with him, or any of them, over what even Pete has to admit is probably a reckless plan. Like? Mostly it's hinged on the hope that if Leto's goods don't get where they're supposed to go, someone will come calling for Leto … and shoot him for propping up a bad deal, maybe. Pete's not super clear on the getdown with crimelords. He does hope that's what happens, because if it doesn't, he's pretty sure he's going to end up doing it himself. And that's probably a worse plan, so they're going with this one. And Patrick didn't argue. 

Patrick actually said yes faster than everyone else, and didn't even bat an eye when Pete volunteered to drive decoy so that's …

Something.

Pete flexes his fingers on the steering wheel.

To his right, headlights cut a long glare down the street. He can't see the _car_ they're ostensibly attached to -- the burgers-and-whatever-shop is cutting into his line of sight -- but it doesn't matter. The headlights crawl forward and then he sees a front bumper and a grille, and the green glow of a dash inside the driver's window. 

And the driver.

Shannon Leto. He looks ghastly, his face catching the dashboard light at weird angles, and Pete's heart jumps because fuck fuck fuck _that's_ not supposed to happen.

He swings into the lot before Pete can do anything but grip the steering wheel. Patrick's barely visible to Pete inside the other car, only identifiable because Pete knows he must be there, but the other shadowy figure, the one actually standing out in the lot, stops moving all of a sudden, and Frank gets out when Shannon reaches his arm out of his window and beckons. The other person, the one Pete doesn't recognize, just watches. 

Frank, huddled in a baseball cap and hoodie, moves carefully. Not scared, even though he should be, he fucking _should be_ \-- but careful. Pete's heart is going to beat out of his throat, watching this; his stomach's somewhere dropped through the floor of the car and is crawling away by this point, but no one's pulled any guns yet, not as far as he can tell. 

So he has to wait. 

He keeps his head down and tries not to do anything that could possibly draw attention. He tries to find the stillness in his body he knows is there, that only seems to come out at the wrong times, like it did when he hugged Mikey before they left. He's sure he held him for too long. It must have been weird. For Mikey or, like. For everyone else, maybe. 

In the lot, Frank moves like he's talking -- he always gestures so much, even when he isn't actually gesturing. His talking just comes out in his body language, like he can't not move with his words. It makes Pete's stomach swoop, but nothing happens except that Frank leans back from Shannon's car with something tucked under his arm he didn't have a second ago. Fuck, was that the drop?

Or no, maybe? The other figure, the one Pete doesn't know, shuffles closer.

Pete feels like he's going to be sick. 

They were expecting someone anonymous. Just _one_ anonymous someone, not two, plus some backup car that Pete's still trying to keep an eye on. Mikey had said, over and over, that except for the weird times when it was Leto himself, it was always only one driver, that he hadn't known any of them and they hadn't seemed to know him. No one ever asked for any proof of identity. It should have been fine, to swap Mikey out for Frank, it should have been -- but Shannon knows full fucking well what Mikey Way looks like, and even wearing a gigantic hoodie courtesy of Ray and with one of Patrick's stupidest hats under the hood, Frank isn't exactly a dead ringer for him.

Shannon ducks to get something out of his passenger footwell. If he's suspicious, he isn't showing it. 

_Pete's_ suspicious. He's a carillon of alarm bells. Frank taps his foot and looks cold, even though it's a warm night and then the other guy moves and--

Frank falls one step back from Shannon's car. Shannon's pointing out the window at him while the other guy lurches, clearly feeling for something tucked into a waistband. 

Fuck.

Pete fumbles for the keys in the ignition, heart hammering fucking Moby Dick against his ribcage while he wills Frank to just get into Patrick's car.

There's a redwhite blurt of light right in the middle of the lot, two seconds ahead of the actual _gunshot_ pop. Frank's body hits the ground, a dropped heavy noise that Pete can't possibly hear because he's too far away and the windows are up, and it must just be the way Frank collapses so fucking viscerally heavy, like a Jenga tower, and no, fucking -- no -- no, no no--

Patrick's passenger side door flings open and Frank, thank fuck, thank everything in the universe, somehow unbelievably lunges for the interior of the car. Shannon's too fucking smart to start firing indiscriminately -- one single gunshot? In the outskirts of LA? Maybe no-one will even bother calling the fucking cops -- but the headlights on the other car roar to life, and the mystery figure dashes for his own ride and time stretches out like putty in a full count of three seconds as Patrick rears out of the lot before Frank's even got the door closed with Shannon right on their tail. He fires again out of the window and Patrick swerves madly. 

The keys jangle and Pete slaps his foot down on the gas almost before he catches the clutch. The plan -- the fucking _plan_ for what good that does him -- is for him to draw off the pursuit. 

The pursuit that wasn't supposed to be a fucking active shooter situation.

The pursuit they were hoping to not even _have_ , in the event that everything went smoothly.

Whatever. Pete keeps his eyes on Patrick, some several cars ahead of him as they make their way off gravel onto an actual sealed road with traffic, jinking and weaving, his passenger side door finally clapping shut. Pete flicks a glance to his rearview. Someone's headlights swing out onto the street after him and fuck. This.

Ahead of him, the top of Frank's head is barely visible through three other rear windows. Patrick needs to pull a few cars away from Shannon or this won't fucking work, and Pete needs to get within striking distance to take over, but again, he can't let Shannon know he's there. None of them can know he's there, or that he's there in place of Patrick -- not Shannon, not the two whoevers, heavies, maybe. The whole point is that there aren't supposed to be two identical fucking cars. 

An engine snarls up three notes somewhere behind him, and people lean on their horns. Ahead, too far ahead and too close to Patrick, Shannon swerves like a shark after blood. In the glare of headlights and taillights, Pete sees Patrick reach out one hand to … do something to Frank, for Frank, and there's a hot guilty flare in his insides, worry for Frank edged with the sickening realisation that he's just so fucking thankful Patrick's okay. 

For now, at least. 

Shannon lurches one lane closer, stuck in the stop and go leading up to an intersection, and Pete can _see_ the fucking gun out the window, aimed at the driver's side of Patrick's car. Pete slams the gas to the floor at the same time as his jaw locks in fury, and only the soccer mom station wagon to his right stops him heeling his car over to try and ram the shit out of Shannon's ride. 

But Shannon's attention clearly twitches sideways to the rest of the traffic, and Pete has to slide back to keep out of sight, leaving Patrick to weave like an Olympic slalom champion, two cars ahead and one lane off from Shannon's range.

Gritting his teeth, Pete eases off the throttle and tries to fucking think, hyperaware again of the heavies somewhere still at his back.

He has it, he thinks, he's almost sure he does. He has Shannon in sight but he's not _in_ Shannon's sightlines, and he has the heavies clipping in his jetstream, stuck in the rhythm of traffic unless _they_ want to be the ones to kick off a five car pileup. Two of them, just two of them. That's easy. That's so easy. 

He sees Patrick slip one more car up, darting through an intersection at a yellow light and he thinks yes, yes, _go_ \--

And nearly rear-ends the car in front of him when someone claps his back bumper. 

He startles and checks his mirror just in time to see the same car come at him again. 

Three heavies, he realizes. _Three_ , not two.

The second hit isn't hard enough for real damage but it does get him stuck up against the car ahead, with no room to pull out or swerve away. Pete tries to clock who the fuck it is, or if they have a gun, but Shannon shoots through the intersection just as the light flips to red, and all of a sudden Pete could maybe give more of a shit about whatever idiotic intimidation tactics Leto's goons are trying to pull.

He throws the car into reverse and rears back faster than the third tap can come, gunning the engine over the sound of shrieking rubber. It isn't much, but it gets him enough space to swerve out of the lane and almost drag the flank of an unsuspecting civilian in his attempt to careen after Shannon. 

The heavies are maybe not as stupid as he thought, though. He sees two of them dodge an actual collision to slice through the intersection after him. More car horns, angry and scared, flare up to fill the night, but it's those two sets of headlights that Pete cares about, glaring white and infernal like they're hungry for him while he shifts up, up, upgear, weaving through the traffic. 

Except he can't see Patrick or Shannon anywhere up ahead, and one of the heavies sticks too close. He grabs the shifter like he hates it, upshifts again, and kicks the car in a hard right down the next side-street he comes upon. At least the first heavy catches the turn -- maybe the second does, too. He doesn't know. What he does know: he has to lose these two, and he hates it, he hates it, his body's punching nothing cortisol through his system right now, his brain clanging around _find Patrick, find Patrick_ like his own personal siren -- but this street's less congested, and this? Losing two fuck-offs who can't do this like him? 

This is just driving.

_This_ is the easy part. 

The MR2 hums around him, smooth as anything, meting out a rhythm that thrums through him and half-quiets the garbled panic in his brain. He weaves and darts through a strobe of streetlights and shadows, giddy that here, on a quieter street, those headlights can't quite catch him. The selfish part of him, the part of him that doesn't think much at all beyond _good, good, good_ missed this so fucking much. 

And if he has to do this, if he has to run them in fucking circles to lose them, he's going to get a little high on the adrenaline rush.

Or that's what he thinks right up until he swings another hard left and he catches sight of the second heavy trying to keep up, almost fishtailing in a reckless careen after his partner around the corner. It's weird, Pete thinks. They don't drive in tandem, or with any kind of synchrony -- but maybe they're just bad at this. He wouldn't be surprised, it's not like Leto goes around collecting virtuosos. 

Whatever.

He cross-cuts through another intersection, the air rich with the reek of tire-rubber and asphalt in his wake. Still, they keep on him, even through the cacophony of more angry horns. They're not good, maybe, but they're decent enough.

Pete grits his teeth, catching sight of a dimmed out street bending into what looks like a residential area. A little wider, maybe, than this one, but empty, and he can work with that. The MR2 hugs the hard corner smooth as anything, and god _damn_ , did Ray work this thing over; it doesn't even protest when he skids into a bootlegger's turn and wheels her around halfway down the block, burning a little bit of rubber on the 180.

The first heavy's headlights glare around the corner, but Pete just jitters, lit up with anticipation. If these two are as much of a mess as they look, he's willing to bet his life's holding in money and cars that neither one of them will actually stand ground in a game of head-on-collision chicken. And even if they tried, at least one of them, the messy fishtailing one, wouldn't really be able to keep up with him.

His odds are good, is the point. He guns the engine. 

Except the one car -- the odd car out, or whatever -- doesn't do what Pete expects. He doesn't try to dovetail with the other driver to block Pete's exit back onto the main street; he doesn't even _stall_ , really, he just keeps coming around the corner and then down the actual fucking street in this weird, wavery way. Like going too fast on an empty straightaway isn't quite possible, for whatever reason, so he has the car going all serpentine. 

Pete boggles for a second in the glare of the oncoming headlights, wondering if this guy is crazy or stupid or what -- and then his brain clicks into place. The wide set of the headlights, all clunky and too-square. It's darker on this street, and quieter, with the houses around, but those lights, _those_ headlights in that ugly front grill. He knows those headlights.

It's the fucking Trans Am.

The other guy, the actual heavy, appears to realize this at the same moment as Pete. Or at least he recognizes that this extra car isn't on his team. He lurches his car into motion, coming on like some snarling nocturnal animal, hot hot hot, like he's literally going to ram Mikey til there's nothing left of the Trans Am's rear-end.

Pete has the honest to god actual thought that he must be dreaming. Or completely fucking dissociating.

One of those two.

He must be. He must be, what with how time warps and stretches out, again, again, just like with watching Frank go down, and a moment that can't possibly last more than five seconds somehow tunnels on for an eternity.

'No, no no no,' he mutters, like a mantra, because he can _see_ Mikey, they're close enough now, when the streetlights flash on the windscreen, he can the whites of his goddamn eyes, like the saying -- close enough to feel his fucking terror vibrating through the air between them. 

Later Pete'll wonder what the fuck Mikey's doing here, maybe -- but for now, Pete's heart is just in his mouth, and his feet move without any actual conscious input from his brain, instinctive along with his hands, his body in the carseat shifting, bracing. The MR2 flies forward, at Mikey, and at the pursuit. He hears something in the transmission buckle, practically, that's how fast he upshifts, and if it could squeal maybe it would. Something _does_ squeal, actually -- but that noise isn't the MR2, it's the other driver getting out of his way, because no one beats Pete Wentz at dangerous games. The street screams past him. He swings in close to Mikey's flank, close enough that this fucker's going to get himself into a head-on collision with Pete if he tries to stick with this tailgating game. And he doesn't. 

He swerves like he's scared and actually spins his car out, skidding. The tirescreech whipshatters all the way down the block. 

Pete guns the engine one more time to pull the hard turn he needs to line up with Mikey. The street really is a straightaway, off to another intersection, except it's Mikey. Mikey who's very obviously scared and who very obviously _shouldn't fucking be here_ , who's just frozen, car idling. And Pete sees the heavy lurching his bullshit ride back in the right direction somewhere not that far behind them. 

The Trans Am's engine sounds like something dying.

He glances at Mikey who just looks like he's on the verge of complete and total shock. Honestly? Pete can fucking empathize, at this point. He breathes through the icy-sick feeling tightening his chest and lifts one hand enough to make a _go, go, go_ motion when Mikey looks at him and that tight feeling eases just a little when Mikey actually _does_ go. Behind them, Leto's guy's car roars like it's trying to eat the concrete to catch up to them, but Pete could care more. He kicks the MR2 into gear and gives Mikey a wide enough berth not to spook him, but swings in close enough that they're broadside to each other, slipstreaming back into traffic.

They move together, Mikey shadowing Pete, and Pete just wants to ask him what the fuck, what the actual fuck he's doing here, but all of a sudden the traffic bulges in a weird ripple. Patrick's MR2 goes screaming past, slipping between cars with a freakish ease that Pete would recognize anywhere, even if he didn't know what car to look for. Gunning through the scared skitter of unsuspecting drivers, Shannon swerves after him, less elegant but very obviously ruthless.

Pete's vision goes heavy, sticky red. 

He floors it again, and thank fucking Christ, Mikey keeps up -- maybe partly because it's still a weird game of keepaway, trying to stay out of Shannon's sightlines. Pete's so busy trying to dodge Shannon's rearview without losing him, eyes glued on that stupid haircut and the way his car weaves in and out of the lanes, that he doesn't notice that Shannon's recognised the Trans Am until he suddenly points his gun out the window, at something that isn't the back of Patrick's head, and Pete's heart freezes to ice all over again. 

That fucking pursuit car cuts between him and Mikey, neat as a scalpel and just as sharp, and Mikey throws a glance at Pete in near panic. He heels over into the outside lane and the new car follows him, and Pete swears, fuck, _fuck_ just as the gun goes off. If Pete weren't wound so tight, his insides would go to water, but no, no. Mikey just skids further in the outside lane and doesn't take the reckless shot. 

Shannon gives up, focus back on Patrick. Pete grips the steering wheel, head spinning out on the edge of hysteria, but it's okay. It's okay. Patrick's still six or seven carlengths ahead, with Leto one or two behind him, and there's an onramp in a few miles, Pete knows. The perfect place to set up a switch if only they can get themselves into the right position -- but he can't leave Mikey. 

'Sorry, lady,' he mutters almost prayerfully to the septuagenarian who's probably about to have a minor heart attack.

He throws the MR2 into the lane ahead of her without indicating, then over again to bulldoze his way between Mikey and the pursuit. Horns blare in symphony and Leto's guy veers so hard and so fast to avoid the incoming ballistic missile of Pete that he runs up on the curb, grinding his undercarriage in a shower of sparks. Pete can actually hear something give in his front axle from the collision with the concrete, and, well, good, frankly. Fucking good. Pete will happily litter the gutters with CV joints if that's what it takes to get this fucker off Mikey's back -- he can run a slalom course that this hack will ricochet through like a pinball in a pinball machine. 

He just has to work out how to do it without running Mikey off the road as well. 

Mikey's just behind him, trapped in traffic to some kind of bullshit legal speed, and Pete's achingly aware of the distance between him and Patrick, stretching and stretching and stretching. Shannon Leto's taillights almost eclipse Patrick, now.. 

The onramp is coming up. 

Pete's breath doesn't come to him for a full missing beat.

The only way he's gonna get to Patrick in time is if he leaves Mikey. He's almost, almost contemplating it. He can do both, maybe, or Mikey can just drop back and drop back until chasing him becomes a waste of gas, or he could pull over somewhere--

There's a graunching, terrible sound, steel-on-steel -- no gunshot but maybe just as bad, as the the Trans Am bucks like a bronco, the pursuit smashing sideways into Mikey's back fender. He fishtails wildly and the traffic skids out around him, scared and furious.

Pete might throw up. Mikey pulls the car back onto the straight and narrow but there's too much traffic for him to really put his foot down and the pursuit is gunning for him again. He can't -- he can't fucking take another hit like that. Patrick got him to the point of being able to drive on a track, where there are theoretically rules, but he's in no way equipped to handle trying to outpace someone whose active goal is to run him down. 

He's gonna end up upside down on the side of the fucking road if Pete doesn't do something.

Pete grits his teeth and gives on the gas, letting his car slip to match Mikey's speed till he's alongside the driver's flank of the Trans Am. Fifteen different bad ideas clip through his head, and he lands on one before he really has time to second guess himself, rolling his passenger window down. The wind whips at him, cold and flavoured with dirt and gasoline, and he tries to work enough moisture into his throat to yell. It takes a couple of tries. Mikey's not holding the straightest of lines in his lane, a palpable fucking wobble, and Pete's not wild about them being lined up like this for too long, they're too vulnerable to a sideswipe like this. He pulls in as tight as he dares. 

'Jump!' he bellows, throat so fucking dry it's a rasp. 

Mikey looks at him like he's insane. He is insane. This is the worst idea he's ever had and goddamn has he had a few bad ones. He peels his hand off the wheel and gesticulates at Mikey like somehow the gesture will have more sticking power than the words. 

'Fucking _jump_ , I'll catch you.' 

Mikey looks, for a red-hot second, like he's not even going to let go of the steering wheel, let alone listen to Pete, but there's another metal-on-metal crunch and a sudden burst of speed Pete wasn't expecting, the Trans Am thrown into a hideous swerve that Pete's almost too close to avoid, and then they're literally panel against panel. 

Pete can't, he _can't_ \-- he's going to be sick. 

He pulls so close they're taking paint off each other, and in one dizzy moment Mikey does actually let go, shoves himself through his window and grabs wildly for the doorsill of Pete's MR2, and Pete has to kick the car into a gear so high the whole thing whines and vibrates like it's trying to ascend to another plane of existence. The whole horrible line-up shivers like a behemoth and the MR2 almost heels sideways into the Trans Am as Pete grabs frantically for Mikey's windmilling arms. 

He catches the underside of the wheel with his knee. The shifter feels like it might dislodge one of his ribs, but it … it works, sort of. The pursuit is stuck behind the juddering hulk of the Trans Am, losing speed now that no one's pushing the gas pedal, but heavy enough to have momentum still, and up ahead, the road splits off, branching and widening for the onramp and Mikey's still kicking, half in one car and half in the other. 

They have to do this _now_ or it doesn't happen at all. 

Pete grabs for him. Mikey's eyes are huge and terrified when Pete risks a glance sideways, but he lurches again, scrabbling,and just like that he's suddenly too much in the car, crashed into Pete's shoulder. But he's _in_ the car. Shaking like he might never stop, maybe, but he's here, safe, and that cold sick feeling in Pete's gut unwinds its snake-coils just a tiny bit. Pete would wrap his arm around Mikey if he could but he needs to use the stick shift, and the pursuit still might have a gun. 

'Get down,' he gasps, hoarse and relieved and still scared witless for Mikey.

Mikey, clearly beyond anything except automatic responses, shoves most of himself basically down into the passenger footwell. 

Up ahead, Patrick climbs the onramp with Shannon a bit farther behind than he was before. Pete puts his foot down, torn between the chase ahead and the sickly satisfying sight of the Trans Am completely losing itself, slowing to a juggernaut crawl, hitting something in the road that makes it skew wildly, and then the awful, cataclysmic noise of it taking the heavy's front end in a final crash. 

Pete can feel the sound of that torquing, wrenching collision in his chest. Mikey, next to him, shudders even though he can't possibly see what's happening. 

By the time they hit the base of the onramp, he can hear actual fucking sirens screaming somewhere in the not-too-far-off distance. Awesome. Patrick's out of sight again, but the boiling in Pete's belly settles a little. All he has to do is find Patrick. Find Patrick and draw Shannon off before actual fucking narcs catch up with them. He can do that. He can outdrive murderers -- donut-munching cops won't be anything to worry about. 

For sure.

'I'm so fucking sorry,' Mikey rasps from the slump he's in, half in and half out of the passenger seat, lying low. 'Pete, I'm -- I had to -- they changed the dropoff.'

'No they didn't,' Pete says, sweeping up the curve of the ramp, trying to figure out which lane to stay in for the best chance of not losing Patrick, when he finds him again, just due to the fluvial sweep of cars at speed. 'We made the drop, it's just it all went wrong.'

'They knew -- I don't know how but Leto must have known we were going to try something, they were setting us up all along,' Mikey says, which, Pete could have told him that but he bites his tongue.

'Whatever,' Pete says, deciding on the middle lane. 'We've got him where we want him now.' A lie, a complete fucking lie, but not entirely incorrect either. 'We drew the asshole out, one way or another.'

The sirens get a little louder and they crest the rise of the onramp, burst onto the highway like the proverbial bat out of hell, too fast for the lane they're in and almost rearending some unfortunate father figure in a beige Mitsubishi. Pete looks around frantically for Patrick, but he can't see the other MR2 anywhere, can't see Shannon Leto's Nissan, til he clues in and looks for a roiling shiver in the traffic flow, the leylines of carnage, the eddy and wake of broken rules and dangerous driving, and then he sees just how far ahead they've got-- 

'Oh fuck no,' he breathes. 'Patrick, no--'

'What?'

Mikey scrambles himself up into the seat properly, and gets thudded back violently into his seat when Pete puts his foot down. 'Pete, what the--'

He never finishes the sentence. 

***

This time, Shannon's shot actually catches Patrick's rear window. And the windscreen, too, by default, bullet whistling through the dead space between him and Frank on a Hail Mary pass that, thank fuck thank fuck thank fuck, doesn't actually catch either one of them in the head.

Except now there's a bullet hole in the back window, and another in the windshield, and the windshield shivers, little spiderwebs shooting through the glass in a hideous promise of what's to come if that happens again. A feeling that might be panic skitters out, lights like fire in his veins, and threatens to wrench up Patrick's guts before he reels it in.

'Fuck,' Frank chokes. 

Patrick swings around a goddamn Volvo, gunning to get another carlength ahead of Shannon. He can't look at Frank, not going this fast, but -- swearing. Frank's swearing. His voice is thick, and wet, and shivering, but at least he's talking.

Fuck, honestly, couldn't be more accurate. 

Patrick cuts one glance to his rearview and sees Shannon work to slip into the space between a terrified-looking teenager with L plates and an equally terrified couple in a mid-90s Honda. Not that it matters. People are starting to get a clue about an honest to god high-speed carchase. Cars slip out of the way, heading for the shoulders, traffic parting like the Red fucking Sea. Patrick's thoughts click and click and click, two steps ahead of him, looking. Hunting. Hunting because he needs a fucking _out_ , or soon there'll be nothing but an empty straightaway ahead of them, just wide enough to play a game of keepaway at 200MPH and too narrow for him to pull any kind of brakecheck or spinaround.

The wind screams through the blown-out hole in the windscreen and the glass makes a buckling sound, more spiderlines jumping to life, leaping like lightning, like the feeling that jolts through Patrick's chest to match them. 

There's no way out of this.

He kicks left again, dodging to the shoulder before another car can crunch them, and then back in lane. The traffic still boils open behind them and is going to unzip right at their back and leave a straight shot right to the MR2 if he doesn't fucking _shake_ Shannon. Except there are still people just far enough ahead who don't know what's going on. Who haven't gotten out of the way yet, and who won't get out of the way fast enough, not if it comes down to a tailgate race. 

Panic. It's panic again, ricocheting all around in Patrick's chest, shredding something up. He glances back, watching cars sluice away in some kind of slow-motion promise that he was right, he really was, and because he was right, it's going to go all wrong. He can half-see the onramp, still, and one hysterical thought bats up against all the others. 

Pete. Where's Pete. Where're the heavies, why is it only Shannon--

Frank chokes on an awful sound and Patrick's stomach makes like it's going to lurch out of his mouth in one messy, awful upheave. He grips the steering wheel so tight his knuckles go white and kicks the gas to the floor, gunning for any room he can get to slip away, and the MR2 groans when he clips the broadside of a minivan. 

'You can't,' Frank mumbles, apparently lucid enough to have picked up on the impending crisis.

Another gunshot blows off into the night, this one missing the car completely -- but maybe it was supposed to. The minivan actually tailspins in an attempt to get out of the way and Shannon darts around it. 

Someone might actually scream, or it might just be a noise in Patrick's head. He swerves again, feeling asphalt and grit hiss under them, hearing the engine roar in hot protest. Up ahead, red taillights glint and bounce in the disorganized bumble of scared traffic -- except no one's slipping to move out of the way anymore. No one's doing anything but driving straight ahead in that lurching way that says there's no room to speed because everyone's in front of everyone, not really speeding and not really getting out of each other's way either.

The river, Patrick realizes. They're coming up on the bridge over the river, where it opens out into the bay. No one _has_ anywhere to fucking go to get out of the way, not even if they wanted to.

'Patrick … '

Frank's barely audible over the screaming tunnel sound through the windscreen. He's bleeding out, he must be. Someone fucking _shot him_ , and Patrick can see, out of the corner of his eye, just how pale Frank is, slumped in that seat and all huddled in a hoodie that was too big for him to begin with, but that looks like it's going to swallow him whole now. The panicked thing clawing at the inside of Patrick's head screams for him to go, go, go, pull off and go, except there's nowhere to go, and he can see Shannon's headlights flashing in his mirrors. 

'The river,' Frank garbles and Patrick feels some unhinged, hysterical laugh bubbling in his throat. 'Drive for the river.'

Drive _into_ the river is what he means, and what. The fuck. Patrick can't, they can't, Frank has a fucking bullet hole somewhere in his body, and it's not like Patrick's a medical expert, but he's pretty sure you don't throw people with puncture wounds into water unless you're trying to kill them faster. 

'You have to,' Frank insists, like he's reading Patrick's mind.

'Are you fucking crazy?' Patrick shouts. The glass crunches again.

'Maybe?' Frank gasps. 'But I know stupid stunts. We can walk away from that one.'

That can't be true. In an order of things that could be true, that can't be one of them. But there's barely anyone behind them now, just Shannon's headlights gunning to get closer, and the adrenaline slosh in Patrick's gut just wants him to look for Pete, find Pete, know what the fuck happened to Pete, at least, before he commits to driving off a fucking bridge. 

Only he can't see Pete. Or anyone, really, except Shannon, and he knows Frank's right. Maybe kicking for a river is a bad idea, but Shannon catching up to them is worse. Somewhere, over the chaos of everything else, sirens wail in the night.

Sirens that will not, by any metric, get here in time.

'If they fucking catch up with us,' Frank says, voice juddering low and full of pain. 'Patrick, if they catch us, they shoot us. We don't walk away from that--'

The MR2 shudders, bumping over the telltale lip between asphalt and the concrete of the bridge. The new clot of traffic comes at them fast, and Patrick knows, he knows, they only get one shot at this. 

'Hold on,' he shouts, swinging the car in a hard right. 

They're going to plow head-on through the safety rail if he can take it at full fucking speed even though everything in him is screaming not to. He's not Pete, who does this shit for show or for the thrill. He's not Mikey, either, who's brave enough to do things that scare him.

A third gunshot shatters through the night, but if it hits something, Patrick can't tell, he just sees Frank startle, then grit his teeth and labor to breathe through the pain -- and that? That's it, that's what clinches it. Frank, who needs him to get them out, out, out because he's not going to survive a T-bone collision or a gunfight or even just a regular streetfight. Patrick puts his foot down and grits his teeth and the world flies away in a scream of tires and the splattered blur of midnight colors. 

The rails catch them first and the MR2's front end folds with a horrible crunch of steel and chrome, but it gives, the rail gives, and then they're just sailing in mid-air for what feels like some impossible distance, a completely impossible unscrolling moment in time. Patrick can't hear much of anything except the rattle of his own breath until the black water catches them with a roar. 

The whole car shudders and makes a hideous sound like the tires got ripped off, even though that can't be true, and the headlights disappear into the burbling gulp of water. Frank scrambles for his seatbelt fastener as soon as the water starts seeping in under the doors, cold and gross -- but he can't do it, he's so obviously going numb. 

Patrick clicks his own seatbelt and reaches to get Frank free just as the MR2 bows forward, gravity and water swallowing her up from the front hood. Patrick fights to keep his hand on Frank, to not slip into the footwell, to twist the keys out of the ignition. It's like being inside the death throes of a leviathan, the car groans so much.

And then the water hits the windscreen and bubbles through the bullet hole, and the glass buckles and snowfrosts with capillary shatterlines. Frank lolls, heavy, where Patrick holds him hard against his seat. The windscreen gives in one go, the water rushing in with the sound of an enormous exhale, black, black, black. Patrick can barely feel his own extremities. But he reaches, he does reach, to tug Frank, to get him over the shifter before they sink further and get stuck. 

Where he gets the wherewithal to clamp one hand down, hard, over Frank's nose and mouth, he'll never know.

The water roars in to swallow them up and Patrick takes one last deep breath before the car drags them under. It's so dark in the cab and he has to scrabble one-handed to find the handle on the door, the brackish water burning his eyes. It's hard work to pull Frank the rest of the way over the shifter in the almost pitch black, but Patrick has to get him out, he has to get them both out, it's suddenly the only thought left in his head. 

They slosh through the door. Patrick feels the car slipping in eerie silence against his legs, tugging a current after him in the dark. He may as well be blind. Against all better instincts, his chest lurches, starving for dizzy, adrenaline-rattled hyperventilation. He doesn't know which way is up, he doesn't know which way they need to go, he can't fucking _see_ \--

But he's buoyant. And so is Frank, for all that he sags like dead weight against Patrick's body. The faint tug, like some kind of reverse gravitropism, is enough to tell him which way is up. He clings to Frank and kicks and kicks and breaks the surface to a blare of sirensounds and disorienting lights, strobing out in all directions. Under his hand, Frank's coughing, which, thank fuck, means he's still alive.

Patrick gasps too, swallows a slosh of riverwater, and chokes, trying to tread enough to keep them both above the surface. It's hard. He's coughing now and it feels like he can't stop. And he can't see with the water hitting him in the face, and Frank slipping against him, so heavy Patrick almost goes back under. 

He kicks, and gags, and kicks more, and--

Someone's talking. 

Not Frank, someone else. 

A boat -- in a boat, or. A raft, a liferaft maybe. Some several hands reaching for them. Patrick seizes so hard with fresh terror he almost loses his hold on Frank, because it's Shannon. Or Leto. Or someone, someone who dove off after them--

Hands grab him and they grab Frank like professionals. The lights are _everywhere_ , flashing and thrumming and blinding, tipping Patrick more and more in the direction of vertiginous hysteria. They, the hands, whoever, they pull him and Frank out of the water.

'You have to let him go, okay?' some voice instructs. 

Patrick's fingers ache at the knuckles. He wants to snap at these people. Or at least tell them he's not letting go of Frank's soaking hoodie, he's not letting them take Frank anywhere. But someone asks again, coaxing very gently, while Patrick blinks water out of his eyes. He can see a little better. Uniforms or something. Medics. _Medics_.

He wants to laugh all over again, who knows fucking why.

Someone gets their hand on his shoulder. 

'We need to help him, you just have to let go. It's going to be okay.'

It could not possibly be less okay, Patrick's pretty sure. Still, he peels his hands away from Frank, his knuckles popping with pain. He's soaking wet, and when his hands come away from Frank's body he realises they're covered in blood. Someone's patting him down, palpating him. 

'I'm fine,' he gasps, trying to swat them away. 'Frank -- he got shot, not me, help him--'

But people are already on Frank -- people in uniforms, mint green and high-visibility strips, people with nitrile gloves on -- and yet more of them are trying to get Patrick's jacket off him, give him a blanket instead. They won't be fended off. He's still coughing up half the river, and water shouldn't make your throat feel sandpapered, should it? It does, though. The salt of it sears. He can taste blood, but maybe that's Frank's, who knows. 

The boat goes up and down, up and down, over the chopping water, and Patrick feels green and red by turns. He just wants to get to land. Preferably before he throws up, but mostly because he needs to find Pete. He has to. He promised Mikey they'd come back, that both of them would come back. 

'Stay still -- what did you say his name was?' The paramedic is looking at Patrick over the ripped open expanse of Frank's shirt, those thin gloves already a slippery mess of black, in the torchlight over the ugly cratered ruin in Frank's shoulder. 

'Frank,' says Patrick. 

Frank flinches. His fists are clenched so tight by his side his fingernails have to be cutting his own palms, and his chest is heaving, pale and sweaty and Jesus, Patrick didn't know he had so many tattoos. 'Okay Frank,' says the paramedic. 'Stay still for me.'

She's got a double handful of gauze and she packs it down over Frank's shoulder, leaning down so hard that he groans from low, low in his belly. Patrick winces in sympathy, but the lights on the riverbank catch his eye. They're getting closer to shore, and now that he's warming up the clothes he's wearing are clammy, gross -- fuck knows what's in this water -- and he's just itchy, fucking itchy. 

Frank's sort of crying wetly, ugly sobs wrenched from the pit of his stomach, like now that he doesn't have to hold it together, he can't. It's the echo of a different ambulance, a hospital room, another late night black-blood still life in agony that Patrick will carry painted into the back of his brain for the rest of his life.

If one of those sets of headlights on the bank of the river isn't Pete, Patrick is going to tear this fucking city apart brick by disgusting brick. 

The boat bumps the shore, someone throws a rope to hitch it to a bollard, and Patrick staggers off before the paramedics can grab him. 

'You need to sit still, we still haven't--'

Patrick will sit still when he's found Pete. When he's woken up from this weird, lucid bad dream he's having, maybe. Whichever. 

He staggers. The bright bright lights and the roar of his own heartbeat incinerate the rest of the world. He staggers towards the blaring cluster of ambulances. There are shadows that way. Human-shaped shadows.

The rock of the riverbed slips and crunches and he trips towards the actual blacktop of the junked up riverside road. One of the shadows moves, and--

It's Pete. 

It's Pete, even though Patrick can't see his face. He'd know that shape, that silhouette, anywhere, and there's a second shape right there next to him. Another shadow that he knows. Patrick's knees turn to water, but he runs anyway, his breath hitching and hitching in his chest. Mikey pushes Pete towards him. That's what it looks like, anyway, Patrick can't tell, and it doesn't really matter what it looks like, because seeing isn't good enough anyway. He has to touch, or grab, or ... fucking crash into that too-distant body and never let go, like he should have done two goddamn years ago and didn't because he was too fucking _scared_ \--

The asphalt claps away under him.

Pete's the one who catches him, somehow. Pete's the one who gets a hand on his waist, and one on his neck, and who pulls Patrick into his orbit. Everything slews sort of sideways, the world caught in an inertia that isn't Patrick's anymore. Pete doesn't let him go. Pete kisses him. 

And kisses him and kisses him, again, and again, and again, even though Patrick can't catch his breath. 

It doesn't matter. He doesn't need to breathe. 

'Patrick, Patr--' Pete can't even finish the word, he just keeps trying to say it in between breathless kisses, half swallowing the syllables as his hands run over whatever of Patrick that he can reach, like he's afraid he's going to to find something broken there. 

All there is to find is soggy clothing and a pounding heartbeat, and Patrick grabs at him back, trying to smooth the shakes out of Pete's body, to say he's okay, he's here, Pete's got him and he's here, and he's not leaving. 

A third hand lands on the small of Patrick's back and there's a kind of _thank god, oh thank god_ at the edge of Patrick's awareness that catalogues the presence of Mikey and lights up, gladdened by it. He's not supposed to be here, Patrick has no idea _why_ he's here, but his lizard brain is warmly pleased. When Patrick can finally make himself pull away from Pete long enough to look in his direction, Mikey looks like a wrung out rag, but there's relief in his eyes. 

Later, Patrick will understand why they were so worried, will understand why the fact that he drove into a river might have unsettled them, but for now all he knows is that they're here. 

Mikey's hand rests on Patrick's hip. His fingers curl, and Pete clings. But he nuzzles at Patrick's face, pushing them closer. There's a naked want on Mikey's face that Patrick can feel echoing like a ricochet around his chest, but … no matter what they said before, it was exactly that. Before. And it's not fair, to hold Pete and kiss Mikey, not without talking to him, not without saying-- 

\--saying what, exactly, Patrick?

He doesn't know what, just knows that he wants to hold onto both of them and never, ever let go. They're going to have to take Frank to hospital, but at least this time Patrick won't have to be alone, sitting in the waiting room.

'Mr. Stump?' 

Patrick looks up from the crook of Pete's neck to see someone in a SWAT vest directly in front of him. 

'We need to speak with you concerning certain allegations around a Mr. Jared Leto--'

***

Patrick finds Gerard, Ray, Andy, and Joe all clustered in the antiseptic-smelling ER when the doctors finally clear him to go. It really shouldn't have taken all that long, he feels -- he shouldn't have even wasted their time, Frank's the one who got shot, not him -- but they stripped him out of his clothes and cleaned out all the open cuts on his arms from the broken glass (that was a surprise) and sat him up in a bed, taking vitals and shooting him with antibiotics anyway, all while three LAPD officers cross-examined him. Leto's payload might still be at the bottom of a river, but apparently there's plenty of other incriminating evidence to go around. Not the least of which being: someone has Shannon in a holding cell.

Patrick's so tired.

And his clothes are still damp and they smell worse, now, half-dried. So maybe that's why he has to strap down the urge to hug Ray with desperate gratitude when he presents Patrick with a dry shirt, at least.

'How's Frank?' he asks instead.

_Where's Pete? And Mikey?_ is what crowds in right behind it, but then he sees: Mikey's in the seat right next to Gerard, curled in close and holding his hand. And Pete -- Andy just has his hand rested between Pete's shoulderblades. And they're safe. They're both still safe. 

'They said he's gonna be okay,' Ray promises. 'He'll just be stuck here for a while.'

Joe makes a tired, amused sound. 'He's gonna love that.'

Patrick, from what he's witnessed with Frank and his busted knee, is quite confident that Joe's sarcasm is completely on point. He just takes the dry shirt and shuffles to the waiting room's bathrooms to change.

In the end, Andy volunteers to stay behind and take the first shift, waiting for Frank. A sad, heavy feeling settles over Patrick. They all know how to do this, maybe a little bit too well.

It's very early morning by the time they get back to Ray's. Joe has a minor fight with Ray about Ray actually going to fucking sleep and not staying up to stress-cook for everyone, and Mikey just shepherds Gerard off to one of the spare rooms, the two of them having some kind of bizarre conversation sustained entirely by eye-contact and touches to the wrist.

Patrick's jeans, and socks, and ruined shoes are still squelchy with water.

'Shower,' Ray says gently to Patrick, before Joe can actually physically push him out of the living room and down the hall.

That sounds like a good idea. A shower. And then sleep, maybe, he would love to sleep. Except he feels like a shell rattled empty by adrenaline, and still too keyed up to actually rest. He glances at Pete who's just slouched on the couch, looking too small somehow, like he's so anxious it's actually diminishing his body. 

'I … ' Patrick hesitates.

'You guys are unfuckingbelievable,' Joe huffs. 'I'm going to bed. Don't bitch at me if you die of sleep deprivation.'

Patrick nods like that vaguely makes sense and Joe marches off. Somewhere, the sound of a door opens and closes. And then another door, and then--

Mikey reappears, suddenly, all long and pale and weary-looking. 

'How's Gerard?' Ray asks, like it's a reflex.

Mikey just curls up onto the couch, and if he's a little too close to Pete, maybe only Patrick notices.

'He's okay. He needs to sleep. I'll go back to rest in a little bit.'

Ray nods and turns back to Patrick. 'C'mon. You need to get warm. Frankie's going to be enough of a bitch to deal with when he's back, I'm not letting you catch galloping pneumonia in the meantime.'

Patrick's heart does a soft flip-flop, but when he glances at Pete and Mikey again, Mikey just watches him, rattled through and hollowed out by shellshock -- and still somehow so thoroughly certain of something. Pete … doesn't look any which way, except exhausted. And still scared. Mikey's fingers slip over his. 

Okay. It's okay. They've got each other.

Patrick nods and follows Ray down the hall.

He showers for as long as he can manage, his whole body aching for the warmth, even though the ceaseless chatter in his head keeps clanging and clanging, upset that Mikey and Pete aren't right there, directly in his line of sight. Steam fills up the bathroom. He sucks in a deep breath and twists the water off. Ray left him actual pajama bottoms and an enormous hoodie with the towels, even though Patrick has all his own shit in a room literally two doors down the hall. His heart seizes for a second, overwhelmed. 

When he's actually dried and dressed, he shuffles back to the living room to find it empty. That's scary. That's so scary, even though whatever's left of his rational, not-strung-out brain insists that it's fine, nothing's wrong, they probably just … went out to the garage to talk or something. That seems like something maybe they'd do, after Mikey watched Pete go full on Gone With The Wind in Patrick's arms. 

His head feels so heavy.

He starts in the direction of the back door, but a soft snatch of a voice stops him. 

His room, he realizes. _His_ room. Something helpless, longing, and disbelieving cracks open in his chest. Go to his room, then. 

They're there, no matter how much Patrick feels like he's dreaming. Not on the bed, which--

\--okay. Okay. He doesn't know why they would be on the bed, but they aren't, they're just tucked close to each other, almost in the corner by the door, like they were having some private talk, the space between them bounded entirely by something apprehensive but gentle. Soft, soft, soft. Mikey's fingers brushing Pete's cheek.

Patrick just stares. He's so tired, he can't process -- he just thinks: yes.

Pete catches his gaze first. Even in the dim quiet of the room, Patrick sees the flush of pink rising in Pete's face. He has such big eyes, all wide with worry and with … something Patrick can't read. Patrick takes a step towards them both.

Mikey glances at him, still so close to Pete that they might as well be nuzzling. 'We were talking about you,' he murmurs.

Maybe that makes sense, he thinks distantly. He isn't sure. Mikey seems sure, though; he reaches out to wrap long fingers around Patrick's wrist and draw him in til he's so close to them both. 

'I was telling him how we agreed to stop fighting,' Mikey elaborates.

That isn't really how Patrick remembers it, but Mikey brushes his cheek anyway, and Patrick could die to keep them like this, right here, with him.

Mikey nuzzles Pete's face, soft as anything. 'See? It's okay.'

_It_. Patrick slips his hand to the small of Mikey's back, feeling for his homeostasis maybe. He finds it, in the slow tide that moves Mikey with every breath.

Pete looks between them like he's still stuck between worry and outright disbelief. And want, Patrick realizes. 

'Just … stay?' Pete breathes, like he really sincerely thinks Patrick might walk away. 

Like that's possible, still.

Patrick leans close to kiss him, want for want. He answers against Pete's mouth. 'I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere.'

Pete makes the softest sound, and Patrick wonders if he knows how fucking beautiful he is. Mikey's fingers ghost over the shell of Patrick's ear, enough that Patrick looks at him. It's what Mikey wanted, maybe. He kisses Patrick while Pete's fingers twitch in the shoulder of Patrick's gargantuan hoodie. It's so different than before, in the garage, when Patrick was so angry he could barely think -- but it's no less willing, and no less certain. Patrick leans into it and feels Pete slow-breathing at his side, cautious and shallow, but still right there.

Hoping, Patrick realizes. 

They're all three of them, just hoping.

He pulls back to let Mikey up for air. 'You okay?' he asks Pete.

Pete nods, speechless. Not like it matters all that much. Mikey slides in to take Pete's mouth, firm and warm and as unhesitating as he was with Patrick. And they look so fucking perfect together. Pete opens his mouth under Mikey's and makes another tiny sound. Mikey just licks into the kiss, savoring.

Patrick slips his hand to get his arm all the way around Mikey's waist. He kisses the soft arc of tendon in Pete's neck. 

The first tendrils of morning blush through the window and he nuzzles Pete's temple.

'You should rest,' he breathes. They should, they both should. They never do. 'Just for a little.'

For a second, he thinks they're going to argue with him, but then Mikey bites his bottom lip and nods. He's _blushing_ , however faintly. Patrick thumbs the line of his jaw.

'Thank you,' Mikey breathes, glancing between him and Pete. 'I--'

It doesn't matter. It matters so very little, whatever thing he's about to say about how he doesn't deserve what they did for him. Patrick kisses him one more time.

'Just go rest, okay?'

They do go, eventually, leading each other out. And they're both still safe. Patrick crawls into his bed. It feels too big and too empty in a way that it never did before, but he closes his eyes anyway, trying to take his own advice. There'll be time for everything else when he wakes up.


	12. Epilogue

Andy frowns at the little LED clock on the kitchen microwave.

'Pete,' he calls, for the umpteenth time, 'for god's sake, stop fucking primping--' 

'I wasn't _primping_ ,' Pete huffs, materializing from … seemingly out of nowhere.

He's such a fucking pain in the ass. He's somehow gotten better at vanishing and reappearing without making any noise, lately, and Andy … throws a glance at his collarbones. The neck of Pete's shirt is all twisted and stretched out, and the skin beneath blushes some reddish color, dotted with teethmarks. 

Incredible.

Andy rolls his eyes. 'I can see that. Are Gerard and Mikey ready to go?'

Right on cue, Gerard slips into the kitchen, dusting his hands off on his jeans. There's a streak of grease high up one cheek, probably because he was out in the garage. Andy refrains from mentioning it. 

'Born ready,' Gerard answers. 'Dunno where Mikes is, though.'

'I suspect Pete does.'

Pete opens his mouth to either argue or gloat. It's a fifty-fifty with him, of late. He doesn't get to, though, because-- 

'Pete does what?' Mikey asks from the doorway. 

Andy wouldn't say Mikey's smirking, exactly, but he's also not _not_ smirking. And, unlike Pete, he looks perfectly presentable. Andy's stopped wondering how the fuck this is possible. 

'Great,' he announces, herding them towards the front door. 'We're late.'

'Like Toro gives a fuck about late,' Pete insists.

Sometimes Andy wonders if he's somehow let his own life turn into that of an accidental cat-herder. He gives Pete a shove.

'Do you want brunch or not?'

Pete wrinkles his nose, but Mikey curls long fingers around his wrist before he can actually argue. Pete's face does … something. Andy just. Doesn't ask.

As they get to the door, Gerard grabs the keys to the truck before Andy can, like Andy might begrudge him a fifteen minute drive through suburban streets. He's so fucking cute about being okayed to drive stick again, Andy can't really help but want to let him 'win' what he clearly thinks is a race for the keys every time. 

He's also been fantastic in the garage. He's no mechanic but he lives and breathes cars -- which was kind of obvious from the first night Andy laid eyes on him. And now, fully back on his feet, he's gone from helping out around the place in small ways to basically running the garage floor for Andy. He keeps tabs on what's in, what it's in for, who owns it, and who owes them. Andy keeps finding the place tidied up around him, Pete actually set to useful tasks in a sensible order, and coffee appearing at his elbow when he needs it. The headache of the fucking logistics and paperwork seems to have slipped away too. Anything he needs always reappears in neat, alphabetized order. And Andy loves Pete and -- this was startling once, but is no longer -- Mikey too, but he's fairly confident that neither of them had anything to do with this.

So he tried to tell Gerard he didn't have to go to all these lengths. Andy certainly doesn't expect it of him. They've got some nascent, smashed-together crew going on, but even if they didn't, Andy's not interested in some kind of work-exchange for letting the Ways still live in the loft. Hell, he's been keeping Pete around rent-free for years.

But all Gerard said was, _I know, but I want to._ And then went back to work.

It's amazing what you can get done when you get your life back. 

Also amazing: what you can get done when you're not running around putting out five hundred emotional fires a day. 

Gerard revs the truck to life, and Andy glances in the rearview at Pete and Mikey, practically pressed up against each other, hip to hip. The restoration of emotional stability notwithstanding, these two are like a pair of sex-deprived teenagers, hand to god. Tucked into the back of the cab, and Andy would bet actual fucking money that Mikey has his hand on Pete's thigh. He also prays that Gerard will give into his baser nature and put his foot down at the next intersection. 

He's lived with Pete for what feels like forever, but there are just things that neither he nor Gerard need to see. 

Ever. 

But Pete just sighs and rests his head against Mikey's shoulder. And that? Andy has to admit, it warms his heart. He doesn't have the full nitty-gritty on what the fuck Pete, Patrick, and Mikey seem to think they're doing, but: 

A) he's glad about that and B) they're adults. 

And C) Pete fucking smiles again, real Pete-smiles, bright as a summer day. That on its own would be enough for Andy.

The neighborhood scrolls by and Mikey noses at Pete's hair in more than just an incidental way. Andy fights the urge to say something along the lines of _if you two don't cut it the fuck out, we're turning this car around_ \-- even though he wouldn't. And honestly, that's probably not enough to get them to stop, anyway.

Thankfully, they pull up to Ray's place before anyone can work on any extra hickeys. Ray has an actual driveway and an actual garage, but Gerard insists on fussing his way through parallel parking the truck. 

Mikey rolls his eyes. 'C'mon, Gee.'

'I have to practice,' Gerard insists.

He doesn't, really, if all evidence of his skill in a car is any indication. He's already driving better than Andy thought he would, for a guy still halfway in recovery, but Andy chooses not to say anything. Mikey, apparently recalling that he has more interesting things to do than argue with his brother, noses at Pete's hair again. In a sweet way, this time.

The truck rumbles to a halt, perfectly in line with the curb. Andy has to get out to flip his seat forward, so Pete and Mikey can follow. No one remarks on the fact that Gerard sits in the car for an extra minute, trying to fix his hair in the rearview, and realizing simultaneously that there's grease on his face. 

Pete and Mikey probably don't even notice. They're leading each other up the drive, laughing at something that likely only makes sense to the both of them. Andy leaves Gerard to his pre-brunch I-like-a-boy ritual and follows them. Gerard's whole thing with Toro is still cute. In an exasperating way, some days, but. Cute.

Andy makes it to the front step just as the door swings open, catching him, and Mikey, and Pete in a rush of what smells like pancakes and coffee and vegan bacon. From down the hall, Ray's voice:

'Frankie, I swear to fucking god--' 

Frank just smirks at Andy from the doorway.

'Long time, no see, stranger.' 

He's as perky as ever, but it feels a little fragile. Andy recognizes the thinned-out paleness in his face; Gerard looked the same way when he first got out of the hospital. 

He huffs. 'Go sit down, idiot.' 

In lieu of the hug he wants to give Frank, he just spins him around and pushes him to the dining room. Frank doesn't argue, which is telling, but he does make a face.

'I'm not _dead_ , Jesus,' he protests, and Andy forces him down into a chair. 

'Yeah, well, let's keep it that way.'

Pete and Mikey don't follow all the way to the dining room, and Andy doesn't want to know why. Instead he sits down next to Frank and listens to Ray in the kitchen, interrupting his own muttering to himself with whispering occasional soft, sweet snatches of a singalong to something that Andy eventually clocks as the first disc of Metallica's S&M. He laughs. 

'He's fucking cute,' says Frank, kicking Andy's ankle.

'Wasn't denying it.' 

At the front of the house, the door creaks open and closes again with a thump. A smear of scarlet drifts past the dining room in a semi-blur, the way it would if a person were kind of running and kind of trying not to run all at once. Gerard finally either got his face clean enough to be presentable or decided he didn't care. And is making a beeline for the kitchen.

Andy rolls his eyes. 'Should I count down from three?' 

Frank smirks. 'Too late.'

Sure enough, Ray's singing stutters to a halt. Andy catches a snatch of '--didn't realize--' and then something clatters, and Gerard makes an embarrassed, startled sound. 

'No, no, it's okay, I got it!' Ray says.

Frank gives Andy a look. 'This whole house is like some kind of Love, Actually bullshit. I've literally been back for two days and it's the most egregious fucking thing.' He scowls. 'Them especially. You were supposed to engineer them into each other's arms while I was gone.'

'Look, I tried.'

'Not hard enough, obviously.'

'You have some suggestions?'

'Lock them in a closet.'

'Charming--' Andy starts, but he doesn't get any further, overrun by Pete's sudden reappearance. 

He looks like a red-hot disaster, and, if he was hoping to keep that shirt, he definitely can't now. What's left of the neckline is stretched so far it's slipping off his shoulder. 

They haven't even had _breakfast_ yet. Christ.

'Lock who in a closet?' he asks, a solid full decibel above what was supposed to be a sotto voce conversation. 

Frank gives him a comically dark look. 'I wish I could lock _you_ in a closet, after Friday night.' He sits back in his chair. 'A soundproof one. Seriously, asshole, I'm on a course of mild painkillers, not fucking benzos. Some of us need to sleep.'

Pete has the good grace to look slightly ashamed, and Andy feels suddenly viscerally thankful that the futon that's still two feet away from his bed can't carry the weight of three people. The worst he has to worry about is walking in on his idiot housemate and Mikey undertaking some kind of endeavor to find out if there's a room or surface in his house where they _can't_ make out. 

Blushing a little, Pete foregoes answering Frank at all. 

'Who wants coffee?' he asks, still talking too loud. He doesn't appear to expect an answer to that, either, because he just disappears into the kitchen. 

Andy pinches the bridge of his nose. The sound of new footsteps shuffle into the room.

'Morning, sunshine,' Frank quips at his side. 

Andy looks up to see Mikey dragging Patrick to the table. Patrick, predictably, looks viscerally upset about the concept of waking up in the morning, and it's not even actually morning anymore. Mikey basically steers him into a seat.

'Fuck off,' Patrick grumbles in Frank's general direction.

'I think you have most of the fucking under control,' Frank grins.

At this distance, Andy notes that Patrick's mouth looks very suspiciously pink. Patrick tries to glare at Frank. It might be more menacing if the rest of his face wasn't also blushing a soft rose color. 

'Jealous,' Mikey huffs, settling in next to Patrick.

'I'm really not.'

'Didn't you say you were into your PT making you cry?'

'Guys … ' Patrick mutters, scrubbing a hand over his face.

Frank just smirks.

They are all, very much, a flaming hot mess, but Andy almost laughs to himself. He does have to cede that, disasters or no, he kind of loves whatever completely dysfunctional thing they've all built.

With another clatter from the kitchen, Pete half-staggers back into the room with empty coffee mugs dangling from both hands. Steamrollered out of the narrow doorway, apparently, by Ray. Andy starts to stand up to help him with a frankly enormous platter of pancakes, vegan bacon, and grilled banana slices.

'Sit,' is all Ray says when he sees Andy move. 

Ray Toro takes brunch very, very seriously. Now that they have the time and energy to do things like brunch, this strikes Andy as entirely unsurprising.

Gerard slips in on Ray's heels, syrups and sugar and jars of preserves all crowded into his arms. 

After that, it's a melee of plates and cutlery and coffee cups and tall glasses all clinking around. Ray keeps trying to make sure everyone has coffee and orange juice and a virgin mimosas all at once. Mikey foregoes almost all of this, filling two mugs with coffee -- for himself -- and grabbing a third for Patrick, who still looks like he's semi-catatonic. Andy gets up, again, in an attempt to help, but Pete and Frank are both actual animals, trying to take pancakes with their bare hands.

Or. Pete is, really. Frank can't do all that much reaching. Still, he accepts Pete's willingness to actually pass him pancakes without using any utensils. Andy lightly considers stabbing Pete with a fork. He has a number of opportunities. 

It takes a shuffle to settle everyone properly. Presumably, this table once hosted the entire Toro clan for Sunday brunches, but that doesn't mean it's not crowded. Still, something feels slightly off kilter. Andy reaches for the pitcher of water, trying to figure it out--

'Wait.' He glances at the table's sole empty chair, right at his side. 'Where's Joe?'

A sudden hush blankets the room. 

Patrick, abruptly much more alert, is the first to break the silence. 'Did he come home last night?' He sounds wary. 'I mean. He kind of disappeared after the race, I assumed he'd met up with someone, but--'

Frank glances at Andy. 'I was home all night,' he offers. 'I didn't hear him come in, at least, not before Ray and Patrick came back. But I went to bed when they did.'

There's a full, fraught, worried beat.

And then--

'No, he did come.' 

Gabe Saporta, literally wearing nothing more than a very oversized t-shirt, wriggles the free seat between Pete and Andy back enough to drop what's probably his bare ass into it, cool as a cucumber. 

He smirks. 'Home, I mean.' 

Patrick actually chokes on his own spit. Andy just blinks, because …

What?

Gabe grabs a freshly poured glass of orange juice and tips it jauntily at Andy. 

'Salutations, Hurley.'

Andy wouldn't say he's the gaping type but he … feels like he's gaping. Or staring. At the very least. Then again, so is Pete. And everyone else.

There's another beat of stunned silence, and then Joe staggers into the room, his hair sticking out every which way. Unlike Gabe, he does at least appear to have underwear on. Gabe's whole face lights up.

'We were just talking about you, Trohman.'

'Shut the fuck up. And be grateful I let you stay for breakfast.' 

Gabe licks the rim of his glass in Joe's direction. Joe rolls his eyes. There's no chair left, so he just reaches over Ray's shoulder to grab for a pancake and folds it up, eating it like it's a taco. 

Andy does realize that there's really only one logical conclusion here but Joe and Gabe? Seriously?

' _Seriously_?' Pete backs him up, looking from Gabe to Joe then back again. 'Seriously.'

Gabe leans back in his seat, stretching like a lazy cat. 'Mmm. You have no idea.'

'Are you _kidding_ me?'

'Please,' Gabe rolls his eyes. 'Like none of you would hit that.'

'Let's not,' Joe says, around a mouthful of pancake.

Patrick's face, at this point, has gone through approximately five different shades of pink.

Ray pushes his chair back from the table and says, too loud, 'I'm gonna go grab a stool from the kitchen for you.'

Joe, still eating the pancake, gives him a thumbs up.

'You guys are fucking _dating_?' Pete blurts.

'No,' Joe answers, right on top of Gabe's:

' _Fucking_ , yes.'

Mikey snorts. Patrick looks like he's going to slide under the table and die. Joe finishes his pancake with grace, which. Andy really feels like that's commendable, considering the circumstances.

'Dating, no,' Gabe expounds. 

Ray reappears, scooting a stool under Joe's butt.

'Well, we're all very happy you stayed for breakfast,' says Gerard determinedly.

'Guys, it's not a big deal,' Joe insists, accepting an actual plate from Ray.

'Yeah,' Gabe agrees cheerfully. 'What do the kids call it these days? Casual.'

Pete looks so thoroughly betrayed it's funny. 'You didn't _tell me_?'

'Chill, Wentz. He swore me to secrecy.'

'Saporta, actual three year olds are better at keeping secrets than you,' Frank interjects. 

'You clearly don't know the lengths a man will go to for good sex,' Gabe preens. 'Speaking of, Gerard, that invitation for a date still stands.'

Gerard blushes a little and Ray's face paroxysms and everyone at the table politely refuses to acknowledge it. Frank glances at Andy. _Closet,_ he mouths, propping up enough of a pancake (still, with the bare hands, Andy's going to have a stroke) to hide his face from Ray. Andy refrains from kicking him.

Not that anyone notices. Pete's still screeching like the drama queen he was born to be.

'Can we just circle back to what the flying fuck?'

'Pete, here's an idea,' Andy suggests. 'Maybe some people want privacy.'

'I do prefer a drama-free hookup,' Joe says cheerfully, and Pete ignores him.

'Best friends don't kiss and _not_ tell--'

'Pete,' Patrick grits, looking agonized. 'Shut up.'

Gabe sits a little straighter. 'Patrick, don't be a prude.'

'Oh my god, please let him be more of a prude,' Frank pleads. 'I want to be able to sleep at some point. Ever.'

Mikey smirks. Gerard joins Patrick in looking like he wants to die.

Andy just sighs. He's going to need so much fucking coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> Tags that didn't make the cut: 
> 
> #all lead guitarists are also mechanics  
> #nobody really cares about the laws of physics  
> #who would win? a reinforced guardrail in a suspension bridge or a toyota rally car driving at top speed? the answer might surprise you  
> #nobody at this party deserves joe trohman  
> #would you believe this started kind of as a joke?  
> #we thought this story would be under 10k  
> #playing fast and loose with the geography of los angeles: a memoir  
> #everyone spends a lot of time not kissing  
> #nothing says 'love confession' like 5-10 lap pillow moments  
> #it's called a love revelation epiphany and it takes at least two of these characters 140k words to get there so strap in you fucking cowards  
> #ray toro's cooking makes everything better  
> #is it survivor's guilt if the man you love didn't actually die?  
> #killer timing, mikeyway  
> #how do YOU feel about chosen families?  
> #tough love with andy hurley  
> #gabe saporta wants you all to know that he's not a good person  
> #your hot friend joe trohman?  
> #patrick stump: so small, so full of rage  
> #why fight when you can angrily make out?  
> #as andy once said: feel free to just angst on my spare couch  
> #gerard way gets shot but no one worry. his real problem? he likes a boy  
> #garages, cars, and lumpy furniture are all great places to bond  
> #obviously this plan makes sense  
> #starring jared leto as himself  
> #this is literally a ride or die situation  
> #ah yes, the old andy/ray misdirect  
> #we gave frank iero a knee injury to slow the fucker down to the pace of the narrative  
> #andy would have got this whole plotline done in like 7k  
> #the whole scene thinks gerard is frank's boytoy and guess what they're wrong  
> #we took a look at realistic car choices and decided 'no'  
> #automotive stunts and polyamory should only undertaken by trained professionals in a controlled environment  
> #cookies are a metaphor for love. even the vegan ones  
> #it's a love triangle until patrick stump realises both? both. both is good  
> #jared leto features more heavily in this story than brendon urie, jsyk  
> #brunch is the most important meal of the day  
> #THEY'RE NOT JUST A CREW THEY'RE A FAMILY


End file.
